The Minister Who Came to Tea

I wrote this one way back in 2016 when SATs were first introduced in infant school inspiring widespread parent protests. This year my third and youngest finished infants, but back then my eldest girl was in year 2 and the ‘Minister’ I had in mind was Nicky Morgan. Although frankly the tunnel visioned creativity vacuum that is the minister in this parody is fairly interchangeable and recognisable in most cabinets - let’s see what happens with this latest reshuffle! I’m thankful for schools like ours who have worked so hard to keep infants rounded in the face of joyless bureaucrats.

Once there was a little girl called Sophie, and she was playing with her classmates outside in the mud kitchen.

Suddenly there was a tutting from the bushes.

Sophie’s Teacher said, 

“I wonder who that can be…

It can’t be Ofsted because they came last week.

And it can’t be the parents because this isn’t the time they come.

And it can’t be the Head because she’s busy with her paperwork mountain. We’d better take a look and see.”

Sophie looked into the bushes and there was a smartly dressed, haughty looking Minister.

The Minister said, 

“Excuse me, but I’m very bored. Do you think I could come and play with you?”

Sophie’s Teacher said,

“Of course, join in.”

So the Minister came into the mud kitchen and sat down on a tree stump.

Sophie’s Teacher said, 

“Would you like a mud pie?”

But the Minister didn’t pretend to eat the mud pies, she took all the mud pies and cleaned them up in one big wipe. Whoosh!

And she still looked bored, so Sophie passed her the pond dipping net.

But again the Minister didn’t try out the net. She shut it in a big case. And then she put in the balls and the skipping ropes until there was nothing left to play with outside.

So Sophie’s Teacher said,

“Would you like to come inside?”

And the Minister grabbed all the paints in the trays and all the storybooks on the shelves.

And then she looked around the classroom to see what else she could find.

She squashed all the collages, and the whole of the paper mache solar system… and all of the stories and poems on the walls.

And she stopped all the singing… and all the laughing… and all the questions… and all the joy, leaving just repetition of times tables and fronted adverbials.

Then she said, 

“Thank you for the interesting day. I think I’d better go now.” And she went.

Sophie’s Teacher said, 

“I don’t know what to do. I’ve got nothing for your well-being,  the Minister has taken it all”.

And Sophie and her friends found that they were terrified at the thought of Junior School because the Minister had squished all the confidence in the room.

Just then the Parents arrived.

So Sophie and her Teacher told them what had happened, and how the Minister had sucked out all the joy and trampled all the creativity.

And the Parents said, 

“We know what we’ll do. We’ve got a very good idea. We’ll put on our coats and we’ll go on a protest”.

So they went out in school hours, and all the roads were quiet, and the babies were out in their prams, and they walked down the road to protest.

And they had a lovely day with nature walks and arts and imagination.

In the morning Sophie and her Teacher built a massive igloo made out of milk bottles in the school hall and learnt about compressive stresses, the geography of the Arctic and the importance of recycling.

And they also collected a big stack of rotten fruit to throw, in case the Minister should come to visit again.

But she (hopefully) never did.