Some explanations,

I am sympathetic to both causes because I was a stropy teenager once.

Lydia will get over the ring thing but the right choice of subjects will have a wider impact on Kim - partly mitigated by the particular subjects which are not to my taste.

Lydia would win in a fight because she has God on her side.

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I thought Lydia would win in a fight because of her Silver Knuckle Duster :-)

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I had to choose between IT and drama and was gutted at the time. But in a year of 100 children, I believe that there may well be cases where it is physically impossible to give everyone exactly the choices they want. And I'm not sure bending the rules for the loud is always a good idea.

I'm not sure my absence of drama GCSE has made any difference to my life. Then again, I'm not sure having an IT GCSE has made that much difference either!

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I think the school to re-jig the timetable if it can. Otherwise, she should have to choose. Schools can sometimes be very lazy with timetabling and just say "you can't do that", when it could be timetabled if they tried a bit harder.

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Of course, it can be hard to spot that it could be timetabled.

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You're right. Odd, it was working a minute ago.

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Heh, I can't manage to answer the poll.

I think that schools should attempt to arrange the timetable such that most (if not all) combinations of subjects are possible. I thought this was one of the arguments for having large comprehensive schools? I realise that arranging the timetable can be tricky but my school appeared to manage to accommodate everyone's desires with only 90 pupils in the year (and, yes, that included some people who wanted to do both drama and French). Performing Arts is potentially a Useful Vocational Subject - I don't think it should be automatically assumed to be less important than pupil's other choices; I feel very strongly that pupils should have to take a GCSE in a modern foreign language and French is a popular choice... If the school can't manage the timetable perhaps a school that can (and is nearby) should be suggested or a she could be provided with some lessons at a different school. I'm assuming that she wasn't trying to take more GCSEs than can reasonably be timetabled - if she was then I think she should have to chose one to drop.

I mostly disagree with school uniform - I feel that telling people What To Wear without any *reason* for choosing those garments (some dress codes make sense - like wearing camouflage if you are in the army) is pretty stupid (whether in schools or in an office). I really dislike special exceptions to uniform policies - because I don't feel that it is the school's *job* to decide what is 'so very important that people should be allowed to wear it' - why should the school say "your belief is unimportant" to children who belong to small faith groups?

Given the existing uniform policy I don't see why she shouldn't be allowed to wear the ring on the basis that it is an important part of her belief (if she says that it is). Personally I don't see why it would be - the Bible doesn't say anything about such things but her belief is clearly not my belief, and I don't see that it's my business to tell her what she should believe.

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And on the nature of the SRT - well, no, I don't agree with it, I don't think it's a Good Thing and I don't see why people do it. On the other hand I don't agree with veiling, don't think it's a Good Thing and don't see why people do it... why should one thing be classed as 'religious enough' and another thing not be? If people are going to go on believing in these things then I'm just going to have to go on accepting that they do so and not telling them what to do about it!

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I think the school should either rearrange the timetable or pay for tuition elsewhere, whichever is less pain (and probably rearranging the timetable is more sensible).

My school split GCSE choices along subject area lines: everyone had to do English & Maths, Double Science or Single Science with Agricultural Science, one of Geography or History, one language, one arts subject, one design + tech subject, and there was an "extra" slot in which one could pick an arts, humanities, language or D&T subject. Somehow it all worked.

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I can sympathise more with Kim- I studied French right through school, though my year was the one where they stopped making French/German compulsory for Highers. If there had been a clash I'd have scraped together the cash for private tutoring or whatever. It makes me sad to see that modern languages are declining. :(

WRT Chastity Child, has anyone told her, old as this source might be, that chastity is the quickest way to fall off the wagon? I'm surprised the SRT is still going; we were laughing at that way back in 4th year at school! Ah well, better get some marshmallows I can toast in Hell... ;)

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Old and still misrepresented, it seems. The statistics in the article do suggest that people who've made a commitment to chastity are significantly more likely to screw up badly if they do, that if they do end up having sex they're more likely to have unsafe sex and end up with unwanted pregnancies or unpleasant diseases. But all that indicates is that if your aim is to reduce unwanted pregnancies and unpleasant diseases then the SRT isn't a good way to do it; if chastity were considered a worthy aim in itself it's less obviously a bad plan.

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If people are going to start litigating over this sort of thing, I think this country ought to follow the French in banning all religious symbols from schools.

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You didn't think that anyway?

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As far as I can tell from the BBC report, Kim has a legal right to study both subjects (Lord Adonis is not one of my favourite people, but he probably knows his stuff here - although it's unclear whether the school could get out of it by offering her French plus another arts subject instead of performing arts). Whether she should have that right is another thing (probably not, I say, but I have the unfashionable view that early specialisation in education is sometimes a very good thing).

I think there is an important distinction between something like hijab (which many Muslims feel is a fairly fundamental part of their way of life) and a silver ring which is being worn as a symbol rather than as something which Lydia feels she has to wear. Having said that, I'm becoming increasingly hard-line about either having one school uniform for everyone with no compromises, or allowing children to wear more or less whatever they want. Otherwise you're having to judge the importance of someone's reasons for wanting something, and I don't think "God wants me to do it" ought to be treated as being more valid than other reasons children might genuinely have for wanting to wear certain things.

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Kim: The article seemed to be suggesting that all schools must make it possible to study both the arts and a language at GCSE level. It's impossible to tell if the school had a different arts subject available which would not clash with French though.

Given it's probably easier to find other French lessons I think it makes sense to do the Performing Arts in school and sort the French out separately, regardless of which is "more important".

I'm sympathetic towards both teenagers. But ultimately I think Lydia's school is not out of order to permit things which are considered necessary for a faith but not permit this ring.

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If it is indeed a requirement that both languages and art are an entitlement then the school needs to revise its timetable to comply. As a stopgap they could fund external lessons, but that shouldn't be a long-term answer.

As for wearing frivolous jewellery in school, Lydia can wait until she gets home and then wear it. She shouldn't be having sex in school anyway.

D

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If the school makes it possible for Kim to take eg Spanish and Performing Arts and French and Art, then surely the school meets its legal requirements without letting her do the subjects she wants?

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Can you please confirm that you mean "special" in the pejorative sense? If not, I need to change my response. (-8<

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Oh, I took it to mean special in the "French is a wonderful and fantastic subject and deserves special treatment" sense...

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I couldn't do all the subjects I wanted to do at A-level (Chemistry, for example), and I went to what some would describe as a Great Public School with (non-subsidised) fees exceeding £10,000 a year in 1985. So money wasn't the problem; time was.

I was happy that I could do subjects I liked doing at A-level which left me with a pretty broad base (Maths, French, Russian, Latin). I didn't make anything like this level of fuss, and didn't feel the need to.

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I believe that Kim should be entitled to study a language and an art at GCSE level. If the particular languages and arts that Kim wants to study clash, then she should choose a different combination.

For those of you who think that Kim should have the entitlement to study French, what would your position be if the school didn't offer French at all? What if the language Kim wanted to study was Klingon?

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The Silver Ring Thing has nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity. Chastity, fine; flaunting your gang colours, no. Objecting to a uniform on the grounds of Leviticus 19:19, or to the canteen meals from Leviticus 11:10-12, is a different (but still very silly) matter and it might actually be newsworthy, but Lydia and her parents should get a life.

Kim's case is just piss-poor scheduling from the school. They can't reschedule on a whim - it's an NP-complete problem - and should not be forced to, but there's no reason why they should not make adequate arrangments. The simplest of those would be grouping subjects together, so you can always choose at least one subject from each category (sciences, foreign language, English, arts, humanities).

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