School bans cops and robbers |
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| 1 FOUR nursery class pupils have been suspended by their school in America for playing cops and robbers using their fingers as guns. The children, all four or five years old, were sent home for three days after shouting “I shot you” and “Boom, I have a bazooka” during playtime breaks. 2 Parents of pupils of Wilson School in Sayreville, New Jersey - which has a “zero-tolerance” policy towards threats and violence - are outraged, saying the punishment is too severe. The mother of one of the children said: “They should make them stay after school or go back to ‘writing on the chalkboard’.” The father of another said: “I understand there is fear and paranoia going on, but there has to be some basis for it. It was at a time when |
these kids were supposed to be playing. They don’t even understand what happened.” Turning his anger on the teachers, he said: “If people making $100,000 a year can’t decipher that, they should be ashamed.” 3 But Georgia Baumann, the school principal, said: “We have to be careful in today’s world. It may just be a game or something said in jest, but it can be taken differently by other children.” 4 The school policy is under review, but similar rules elsewhere have led to extreme cases such as children being suspended for having plastic knives to eat their lunch. American schools have been extra cautious since the mass shooting at Columbine high school in Colorado and the fatal shooting of a girl by her six-year-old classmate in Michigan. |
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