Temp Duped wrote:
I was horrified to think how easy it would be for a predator to take advantage of these unsupervised children. The school was swarming with visitors and parents.
This was always a real problem for me. Parents are allowed to walk around freely at the school. My own child would often say that she was unable to get to her coat peg for the number of parents standing beside it. Needless to say it was the same parents day after day. How easy it would be for someone to pluck a child and walk straight out of the door. There seemed to be no management of this within the school. I myself have walked round the school with no supervision. I was never stopped or questioned. I have never been CRB checked and yet here I was like many others mingling and walking around school corridors. At the school my children now attend you basically drop your child at the school gate and are not allowed to enter the school and roam around willy nilly....and rightly so.
These were common occurances and without question ad-hoc baby sitting sessions.
I have not seen this at St James but this does not mean that it did not occur. I did see (and many times) children bring in small suitcases to school after a few days of sleepovers at other children's houses. This would happen time and time again. Parents too busy or too selfish to look after their own children properly, dragged about from house to house at a relatively young age.
Also the exhausting number of playdates that occur within St James is just a joke. I often thought that this was just a normal thing. Having spoken to a number of parents at different schools and my own experience at my childrens new school, playdates are kept at a minimum. Many parents feeling too tired at the end of a hard days work or simply having better things to do. At one stage my daughter had been invited to four playdates in one week... you literally had to keep a social diary for your child....and of course it goes without saying playdates had to be returned. Looking back, the schooling and some parents at St James, were a complete and utter nightmare.
Bella wrote:Whatever else the principle might be, it's not manufactured to lure people in.
No, what about poor kids being dragged off to some Hindu ceremony at the age of 10 with their bowl of fruit, weeks pocket money and given a mantra to repeat over and over again for the next eight years. What about even younger children being brainwashed over their entire junior schooling by teaching them to pause and subtly indoctrinating them into the SES belief system, so by the time they get to ten they have been well and truly groomed to adopt a mantra and particular way of life. I will say nothing of the deceitful advertising that this group employs to get people to their headquarters at Manderville Place.
The schools as they are today(and I can't see much change) are conniving and manipulating. So what if the schools are a little more open now about the SES and what they teach. Donald Lambie has spoken (a perfunctory apology, nearly five months after a damning report is published)..what! and we must now bow silently and reverentially and walk away silently because all is so seemingly well. I don't think so.
When St James moved to Earsby Street the SES had a massive debt to pay off(it ran into millions). This money could not obviously come from the pitiful SES families who had to clean the windows or such like to pay off school fees. The only way that this could be done was by bringing in outsiders, namely non-SES families. Idiots like me who fell hook, line and sinker for the 'happy' place they so liked to advertise. Nothing could be further from the truth. My chidlren are very happy elsewhere, thank God. Looking back I realise that their happiness at the school was only superficial, a plastered on kind of happiness not truly happy and carefree as a child should be.
As a family we were sucked in by the SES and their SES school. We were never told the truth. Even when asked outright, both headteachers and other teachers denied that the SES is a cult or even a religion. I believe very strongly that the school is recruiting children for the SES, and like Temp Duped I have no wish to reiterate on this board some of the truly horrific things I have both seen and heard at the school. What these people are doing is wrong. Innocent families like mine have been hurt and will continue to be hurt. Information for new parents on what the schools teach and what they believe is a step foward, but like Donald Lambie's apology, it is only half hearted.