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Did you receive a copy of this letter? If you didn't, and it appears the headteacher is conducting a smear campaign against you and your daughter using public funds, then I would imagine the local paper would be very interested. The letter tries, rather clumsily, to link riding 'with little regard to road safety' and not wearing a helmet. The link between the two is sufficiently tenuous that even the densest journo should be able to see that the comparison is intellectually dishonest.
Brommers-
Sorry if I gave the impression the letter was about my daughter. The x-ed out name was my friend's daughter's name. She rode to school without a helmet, and was stopped by a teacher who said he was conducting a survey about 'active students' or some such thing.
The fact that it turns out he was actually taking the names of helmetless cyclists so he could send their parents the above letter is dodgy in itself, but there's no smearing involved.
lazybeard
Update on this story about my kids' school trying to make helmets compulsory for all cycling pupils.
I wrote the the head, citing helpful info from here and the CTC. I got no reply, but the compulsory aspect was quietly dropped, and we heard no more of it for a while. However, this evening a friend showed me this letter which was delivered today:
Dear Parent/Guardian
Re; Road safety and cycling helmets
During this academic year, concerns have been raised by local residents, other road users and members of staff regarding the safety of some Finham Park students cycling to and from school. These students have been seen riding their bikes with little regard to road safety and with many not wearing a helmet. We have conducted assemblies to all students to highlight the dangers and how they can stay safe on the roads.
Below are some statistics from the ROSPA website;
Cyclist casualties, 2013
Child Adult All
Killed 6 193 109
Seriously injured 276 2867 3143
Injured 1676 14510 18616
Total 1958 17480 19438
The reason you have received this letter is because during a recent check, xxxx came to school on her bike without wearing a helmet. We are very concerned about the safety of all our students and ask that you can support us by encouraging xxxx to wear a helmet whilst cycling to and from school.
Yours faithfully
What do you think about that?