Stephanie Smith: Let’s hear it for the head who took on the unicorn

It’s all getting a bit Mean Girls out there in the playground. Not the children, the mothers. So much so that one headteacher has decided to step in and try to put a stop to it all – before someone gets hurt.

It was Myleene Klass who started it, because she had been poking fun at some other mums, who had, like ages ago, asked for £10 donations for a “class birthday gift”, so that they could to buy their daughters really good, useful stuff, like a desk and a Kindle, presumably instead of all the daft little things that kids usually get from the friends they invite to their birthday parties (my daughter got a hand towel one year, actually quite useful, but it did lead me to wondering what that mother was trying to say).

Anyway, Myleene decided to have a little bit of fun with with the “class birthday gift” idea, didn’t she. She hashtagged on her Twitter that she thought it was “bonkers” and she posted her own mock request asking for donations to buy a unicorn. She added that she would also like a Ferrari and Leonardo DiCaprio, which personally I thought was a nice touch, and quite funny, but the headteacher clearly decided that enough was enough. So she sent out a newsletter, in which she gave some insight into the daily stresses and strains of what it must be like having to deal with a bunch of such, er, lively parents at her private £5,000-a-term school.

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“How I wish I could focus on your daughters’ education and not responding to media trivia and car parking complaints,” she wrote. “How many times this week have I been asked to comment/act/intervene/reprimand … do something!” She then urged: “Mutual respect and tolerance”, before moving on to the weekly round-up: “No more parking on ziz zags. No more blocking in the neighbours. No more unicorns.” (Yes, Myleene Klass, see! That’s you, that is. You and your unicorns).

Finally, the plucky but exasperated headteacher advised: “As my granny would’ve said, if you can’t tweet anything nice, don’t tweet anything at all.”

Well said. And oh dear. You can’t help but feel sorry for that poor head. I bet she dreams of a headship at a massive, crumbling, barbed-wire protected school in a run-down inner city area, with no celebrity parents and especially no shiny posh new mum-trucks blocking in the neighbours, and each other. Like, nightmares-ville.

As for that Myleene Klass, well, there’s always one. And these days, Myleene, that one always seems to be you. All I can say is ... you’ve let the school down, you’ve let the other mums down, but most of all (altogether now), you’ve let yourself down. To the cooler, now, please.

Twitter: @yorkshirefashQ

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