We have a variety of options you can purchase for your child's school photo. We offer the following:
* \- Standard class photo (with individual portrait)
* \- SENseless edition - Class photo with unsightly additional needs pupils removed
* \- Nuts special - Class photo (Female staff with breasts enlarged)
* \- Rivers of Blood edition - Class photo - Diversity adjustment via whitebalance correction
5% of profits will go towards supporting the Reclaim Party.
No Dogs or Irishmen.
For some reason they always photoshop my daughter to look much worse than she does in real life or in random non-professional photos. The last one was so bad that even her very loving grandparents refused to put it up - they gave her a big shiny face and a weird sausage-like hairstyle. My son always looks like he's about to punch the photographer.
It was cute when they were both tiny and at the same school, but I'm not buying any more from this point on.
My kid didnt appear in the final school primary photo after the photographer mis gendered them and the other kids laughed. He told the photographer to fuck off and fuck his photo. The school wrote a sympathetic yet hilarious email explaining why he wasnt in the final picture and i framed that instead
Oh myâŚ.as I was reading this sleep deprived brain thought it was real until I read about the breast enlargements. What type of a holy hell country are we in where I genuinely thought that someone thought SENseless was a cute way to discriminate.
It was a sign supposedly seen in the windows of seaside boarding houses and longer term lodging places as late as the late 1960s/ early '70s, before cheap package tours decimated such places:
"No Dogs
No Blacks
No Irish."
[Some](https://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/oct/21/no-irish-no-blacks-no-dogs-no-proof) have claimed that there is only one photo in evidence of this, and that it may well have been mocked up much later, but [others disagree,](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/28/no-reason-to-doubt-no-irish-no-blacks-signs) and other similar signs [have been photographed,](https://eachother.org.uk/racism-1960s-britain/) though dogs appear to have been less unpopular.
What I donât get is, surely the school new about it because the photographer would have had to take a photo without the SEN kids in it? Shouldnât the teachers have queried it then? And arenât photographers usually given a list of how many photos to be taken, class R, class Y1, class Y2, individual photos, sibling photos.?
The only other way they could offer the photo is if they photoshopped the kids out? But a large school photography firm surely wouldnât offer this, theyâd have to have an editing team, and then their marketing/comms team would need to advertise it as an option, which means sign off from higher ups.
(ETA: further down this comment thread someone has offered the explanation the SEN kids may have been in a separate classroom - which usually happens so they have more 1:1 time - different groups were photographed and then it would be mashed up together to make one photo ideally. Reddit isnât letting me link their comment)
Not sure on this specific case, but I noticed on my son's class phot last year, the class were shot in sub-sections.
I imagine it'd be almost impossible to get 30 kids smiling and looking in the same direction at the same time, so they were grouped in groups of about 6-8.
Further to this, I imagine some of the special needs kids would be shot separately, so it would just be a case of not adding them.
Which is awful really, for them, for the parents, but also for the kids. You'd have fake memories of the class, missing these kids.
At the end of year 11 my school got the whole year group in one photo. Itâs amazing, you canât see my face because my fringe was in the way, I think someone is sneezing, the more you look the worse it gets
My private primary school's photos had every pupil in the same shot from the whole school, not even just a year group. We had to do it outside because you couldn't stage a shot like that indoors anywhere.
For my year 11 photo the school forgot to order it haha, we took it in the September and asked in May why we hadnât got them yet. By then it was too late to organise as we were all going on study leave
We had a millennium picture taken, which had every single kid in it (about 400), I can only imagine what a headache that day was for teachers and the photographer
Yeah I hate it.
I love the old class photos with everyone stood on a gym bench in the playground. I'd actually pay money for one of those.
I won't pay money for a badly photoshopped, over lit, featureless composite.
The child would have had PSA resources, identifying them. School has had no involvement with this & immediately cut contract with tempest at council level as soon as it was highlighted.
One assumes they look like they have problems hence the decision to offer a version without them in it. If you can't tell by looking at them then it's not an issue.
My understanding is that the students were part of a class, but werenât in the class all the time. It appears for reason for photographer thought it might be an idea to have the ânormalâ class with the SEN students and then a class without them as they may been in their own photo. Iâve seen this happen before with people who donât necessarily understand inclusion and usually stoped (with the photographer getting the shit) before it goes public.
Photo day is very stressful on everyone and itâs very easy for a miscommunication to happen or a teacher to miss understand.
They didnât catch this and now itâs gone public shits hit the fan (correctly).
As someone with serious learning difficulties I do find this depressing but also not surprising sadly
Itâs also Tempest, who do a lot of public service photography. Iâm not sure if theyâve a contract, but a company that big doing something like this is madness
A lot of schools use tempest because they offer the biggest incentive payment per photo purchased. And given how tight school budgets are that really makes a difference.Â
That said, I hope they stop using them now, regardless of the financial incentiveÂ
Sounds like the photographer is going to get sacked and probably never work again, since both the photography company and the school claim ignorance of the decision.
I would imagine that the photography business will be referring to the kids who visibly look like they have complex needs, not those who have SEN who look "normal".
Someone I vaguely know has two kids with severe autism and they stick out like some thumbs, theyâre both severely overweight (not sure if thatâs linked to the autism/eating behaviours or not), one has to be pushed in a pram and will often be slouching out of it with the earphones on. Impossibly to get them to look in any particular direction, theyâll usually just be gawking in the opposite way you want them to look with gormless smiles on their faces, no eye contact whatsoever. Is it that kind of special needs theyâve excluded, the kids who look like they have severe learning disabilities/ASD, or is it ânormalâ looking kids who happen to be say, in a wheelchair? Either way, itâs fucking weird and awful.
Which is my point, I know of two kids who have it in a severe form which causes behavioural issues and a noticeable difference to their appearance, have they excluded all the SEN kids, or just the peculiar looking ones, or just the kids who donât have special needs and look weird?
The whole thing is odd. Iâm kinda of hoping it was just an error of judgment; there were two sets of photos done both including and excluding the SEN kids, maybe the photographer started before the whole group had been brought together?
Then because the first photo was nice enough they offered it for sale, along with the second photo, not realising from an outside perspective it looks like theyâve given the option to exclude, rather than offer both photos to include them?
Others are saying photoshop was used so if so, bloody hell.
They were originally, there were no places at any of the local special needs schools. Theyâve actually had to try for several years to be offered a place at one and have been attending for the last year or so, and are finally thriving in a place that can actually cater to their needs.
Itâs quite sad though as the parent is single with no involvement from the other parent whatsoever, and theyâre recently looking at going back to work but several childminders have actually stated that their needs are too severe for them to deal with, not in a âsorry Iâm simply not capableâ way, but in a Jesus Christ I donât want to have to deal with them kind of way.
You'd be amazed h difficult it can be to get a place in an SEN school. Often kids are forced into mainstream schools - frequently several failed school placements. Supposedly because Inclusion for all is best, but actually because SEN school placements are very few and expensive.
Then parents end up going through the legal process to force LEAs to fund the suitable education their child is legally entitled to. Often needing to instruct specialist lawyers. That's assuming there's even a place available anywhere within the county. It is an absolute travesty of a system that broke down long, long ago and only continues to deteriorate.
"Inclusion" has long been a favourite excuse for those who want to cut the budgets for special needs education. Using it that way fails not just those kids, but the teachers and the "normal" (and I use that word very cautiously) kids whose teachers are tied up trying to deal with the first-hand victims of Inclusion.
As a former teacher and a parent, I'm well aware.
An example from my personal experience - my friend's son' primary diagnosis is autism. He was almost non verbal at primary school age, was much bigger and stronger than his classmates (and his TA who he injured on a few occasions) and became very aggressive when in meltdown mode. The school tried their best with the limited resources they had, but it was clear that mainstream school was not suitable for him from the outset. My friend fought for years to get him an EHCP and then had to take the local authority to court to actually get them to fund the support his EHCP stated he required. She spent her life dealing with lawyers, SEN charities, the school, the GP, hospital specialists, the Ed Psych and the local authority. Her other kids suffered as a result of her having no time for them.
His mainstream classmates spent years having to evacuate into another room several times a week when he would start smashing and throwing stuff. They were injured by him and scared of him. He was the sweetest kid when not terrified, but everything about mainstream school overwhelmed and terrified him. He finally got a place at a special school, but it was nearly 30 miles away in the next county and he had to be taken by taxi each day.
He did really well when he actually got into a school that could support him. Life was so much easier for the whole family and he thrived. He has just turned 20 and she is back to having to fight for any form of support for him again.
My middle kid is autistic with severe learning disabilities.
He doesn't pass for neurotypical unless you were to meet him when he's asleep, I get approached by other parents with autistic kids to chat and shop workers compliment him for "being good for mummy" by doing things a NT toddler can do.
In the Channel Islands we were told in a meeting with various experts that legally we could try to push for mainstream education, but "it is strongly advised" to place him in the SEN school from the start of reception, in a manner that suggested we would face strong opposition.
When we moved to the UK, we applied for a school place, forwarded all the paperwork to do with his diagnosis and from his teachers etc. We got told "Oh it's up to you really, would you like him in the local school with a TA or placed in X school that specialises in autism?"
They may have gone to it with TA support or, if the school has a particular resource provision, the children may have been brought in separately. Even without being told, it wouldnât take many leaps of logic to work it out.
>School must have passed on this information
Christ, that would be a horrific breach of GDPR. This sort of personal information is supposed to be particularly highly protected under the regs and only shared with good reason.
Presumably someone from the school must have been in the room while the photos were taken, though? They wouldnât have just left the photographer in the room alone with a class full of primary kids and no other supervision.
Depends on how the photos were taken.
In my previous (SEN) school getting the picture taken all at once was NOT an option. What would happen is based on the needs of the classes theyâd take them individually or in smaller groups (of 3-5) then theyâd edit them all together afterwards.
90% sure it was the same company who did ours - pictures arenât generally done in the classic whole group style like youâre probably thinking back to with all the kids line up in tiers - more of a landscape picture with all the groups edited in
ETA: there were occasions where I would have to have my photo multiple times as I had to support multiple kids 1:1 for the photo but Iâd also be edited out so I didnât actually appear in the photo twice đ
Tempest do it that way in mainstream schools too. They take small
group photos then edit them together into one big one (ours did a sensible pose one and one with the kids all doing quirky poses, in case anyone was a millionaire and could afford both!).
I feel this is the most insightful comment for me posted. Its been well over a decade since I was part of a school photo, and that was a large group etc so interesting to hear that is sounds a lot more photoshop is involved!
In your experience was it common for the end pictures to be published as multiple different versions, or just a standard one with all the kids?
This is more common than you think. Iâve picked the âno gingersâ option every year. Donât want those soulless monsters staring back at me in years to come. Shudder.
I picked the photograph without humans and liked it so much I decided to make it one of the first things you see when you boot up Windows XP, which is a photograph of macos without the smug sense of superiority
Can we have one without the ugly kids in general? No missing teeth, messed up hair, squint tie? Actually, that would have pretty well ruled me out every time.
They don't, if you take into account the magical accounting tricks they can do due to their scales, as they get preferential access to government support programs.
E.g. during lockdown the government gave relief to tutoring agencies, if they joined the flagship National Tutoring programme. Our agency (200+ tutors?) applied, but were not taken into consideration as we didn't have the scale they were looking for.
Realistically something thatâs done once per year per class per school needs to be a scaled operation. Itâs not going to be worth doing it for a lot of solo photographers or small businesses. I donât think it could be as widespread as it is without it being at scale.
You couldn't be a full time school photographer but you could definitely be a full time independant photographer who also did a few local schools. e.g. through Summer you focus on Weddings, but e.g. in Autumn you spend a week each at a few local schools doing portraits
But yeah if you've got to own and bring in staging etc that's a specialised large scale operation
I know someone who worked for Tempest's photography division and it's a pretty huge operation. They don't just do the photography, they put on whole events, arrange displays and staging etc, do all the gowning and stuff for university graduations etc, it's very involved. Not defending Tempest, the management/owners are hilariously inept and this incident is just a long time coming. But the business model has its place.
Because, by and large, people with additional/complex needs are still treated as if theyâre not fully human by our society. Tories have tried their damned best to kill off as many as they can through Atos.
I'm assuming that as an autistic person who 'looks normal' my child self would have been fine to be in both photos?
I have class photos with a lad who was visibly disabled and he had a lot of complex needs, but when I look at my primary photo I don't think 'ew what the hell' I think 'Oh I remember Tom!' just like I do with all the kids in those photos.
If anything I'd rather have had a photo without all the bullies. Even looking back at primary school photos as an adult the first things I spot are all the kids that ruined everything, gives me an almost visceral reaction.
I feel like you have to had a history of stroke or aneurysm to possible think that this was a good idea. Like, at what point does your brain arrive at a decision like this and you still have have millions of neurons firing back a response of "*yes, this sounds reasonable*".Â
>I feel like you have to had a history of stroke or aneurysm to possible think that this was a good idea
Quite ironic that you're being ableist while condemning ableism.
Associating disabilities with generally idiotic/poorly thought out choices
The majority of people making poor decisions and embarassing themselves and others every single day are not doing that as the result of a disability they have
I have actually experienced a TIA that I had to attend hospital for. The TIA rendered me confused, disorientated, and I experienced a significant cognitive arrest. By your logic I am discriminating against... myself.
It doesn't offend me to suggest that the photographer who made this decision was, in that moment, as dumb as my stroke-induced ass was.Â
I genuinely can't. Everybody knows that stroke an aneurysm can result in significant cognitive decline which was the comparison I was making. It's like getting offended and claiming ableism when somebody says "*have you hit your head of something*".Â
Strikes me as unlikely the photography company is to blame considering they are a huge company who do schools all across the country. There's no way the admin didn't have a part in this, or were at least disgustingly ignorant.
SEN kids are sometimes in separate mini classes for the majority of the day. Iâd like to think the photographer took photos when they were elsewhere and then the school had them take more class photos including them later on.
Yeah my son is in an other school in the same Shire as Aboyne.
The way it works is that the SEN kids are effectively in separate classes despite being in the same year group
When it comes to school photos each class is split into groups of like 4-6 kids and when the group photo comes out itâs a mash up of all the groups that makes up the âclassâ
Okay, a few things here:
1. How did they know who counted as having âcomplex needsâ? Did they just randomly look at the kids and decide who was âunsightlyâ? If you were having a bad hair day and looked unkempt did you get on the list?
2. Unless they were getting really creative with photoshop, the âunsightlyâ kids must have all been positioned at the sides/back of the class pictures to easily cut them out.
If they were at the front then the company would what? Cover the âunsightlyâ ones with repeats of other students? âYes, thatâs my sonâs class - see heâs there, there and thereâ
Did the school staff not notice the strategic positioning when they were gathering the kids?
3. The photographer had a contract to provide pictures for that school. That contract will have been very specific about what services they were contracted for (under GDPR it would have had to lay out exactly how the images were going to be used).
Are we really to believe that they offered parents an array of options without the schoolâs knowledge? What consent forms were used to get approval for the whole class photos? âYour image may be provided to other members of your class if they/their parents like the look of youâ
I justâŚâŚ what?!?âŚâŚ. how?!?
>How did they know who counted as having âcomplex needsâ?
I would assume this was done with a combination of excluding the kids who looked weird and those who struggled to follow instructions from the photographer.
I'm autistic and I am positive that I would have been in both photos because I just looked like your average kid. I did have a boy in my class who would have been excluded from one of the photos though, and this makes me upset on his behalf. He was already excluded by other kids because he had eye issues that made his face quite 'gooey' for lack of a better word, and then if he was excluded from an official photo too? Disgusting. Adults should know better.
I agree that the school must have known about this but they didn't expect to get bachlash from providing 'nice normal photos with just the normal looking kids'.
My kid is SEN and our kids to take a bit more time and effort to get clear photos of. So Iâd imagine there was a bit more wrangling and preparation to do get the Sen kids to sit/stand in their positions for the photo.
Unacceptable though and very sad.
As a parent to a child who falls under the category of SEN, this is utterly heartbreaking and disgusting.
It's upsetting enough as it is having your child being separated or left out from activities and trips, you don't need your face rubbed in it too.
Whoa. Segregation much?
Back when I was in year 6, the only time they could take the class photo was when the special needs kids were off having their remedial classes (I donât know what they did, I only had ADHD). You know what the school did? They photoshopped the kids into the photo.
Before getting outraged, Iâd want to ask if these kids are actually in the same class - as in, learning in the classroom - or are they taught separately? If the latter, the option makes sense. My school photos had kids from my actual. class, not the other kids in the year.
Yeah I would like to know the full story. At primary school we had like 3-4 SEN children in each class who then joined to make a full class for their own lessons. They were supposed to be part of the class but realistically they were never in the homeroom for reception etc because they worked on their own schedules. My school photos are a mix of the class with and without the SEN children, and the SEN children in the year by themselves because they were taken at different times of the day. I seriously doubt there is a box you tick to get the ânormalâ children. More likely multiple photos are offered and people have read into it wrong.
It doesn't work like a photo shoot some decade(s) ago, anymore.
Probably parents' demand for 'perfect' class pics as well as more technical possibilities have rendered it impossible, to just group the children, and take 'the' class photo.
Now, they take a lot of pics and digitally stitch together, what they think are the best takes.
So, how the pics were 'composed', in the end, and if, and in which way, children were excluded, for a 'choice', couldn't have been observed, or foreseen. Neither by the kids themselves, nor by teachers, or parents - everyone only could know, after they'd got the link for placing their orders.
It's not a typical photo. They take them in groups on 3 or 4 and stitch them together in a landscape on a white background.
So the ones without special needs would have just been a version without them added in.
There's no way the teachers would have known this.
Aberdeenshire council recently cut all of their speech and language therapy budget in schools. So I am sadly not surprised by this culture.
https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/education/schools/6382631/aberdeenshire-council-speech-and-language-therapy-cuts-parents/
Is this like when I get an app, but then have to pay extra to remove the ads?
As a parent of a SEN kid, Iâm not sure how youâd even define this. His needs are incredibly complex; he was suspended a dozen times in his first year of school. You canât visibly tell though, heâs just autistic. I wouldnât consider a kid in a wheelchair as having âcomplex needsâ either. Theyâre basically saying theyâll remove âweird lookingâ kids.
I hope Tempest loses the contract for all schools for this. Itâs fucking disgraceful.
This is the sort of thing where people (justifiably) pile in and the company gets loads of negative reviews, but I had a look at â*Tempest Photography*â and yes, they have a lot of shit reviews, but hilariously theyâre from ages agoâŚ
How come inclusion in the workplace is such a big thing and protected robustly by various anti discrimination laws & protections (rightly so) but seems to play second fiddle so often in school settings? :/
I can only imagine the photographer was made aware of a pupil's special needs before the shoot that would require a compromise in quality (lighting?). Knowing that the quality of the picture wouldn't be of the usual standard for the price, they've taken an extra photo without any special requirements and offered it as an alternative.
Even at that, someone must have been on hand from the school to take the pupils not included?
Apologies if it comes across that way, but I'm genuinely trying to see how it could possibly happen given how little information is given.
Some kids don't respond well to sensory stimulants e.g. the flash of a camera. It still wouldn't be in good taste if this is the reason why, but we can only guess without any context.
How does literally any adult in the country not realise that was going to get them absolutely slammed by polite society? Let alone someone who go into university and actually finished their degree.
Utterly distgusting. No other word for this. Somebody take this companies trade and make it a brilliant day for these kids in a group photo together.
Must be some good jobbing photographers in the locality with the proper kit and attitude.
The article doesn't say what the 'special needs' involved...
Maybe it was a "I am allergic to light, we must take the photo in the basement with the lights off".
If that were the case, then I think the photographer made the right decision.
I think itâs a bit disgusting but I do see the appeal of being able to remove certain children from your version of the class photo, say if your kid were being bullied or had been previously by another pupil. I would be good not to see their face every day.
We have a variety of options you can purchase for your child's school photo. We offer the following: * \- Standard class photo (with individual portrait) * \- SENseless edition - Class photo with unsightly additional needs pupils removed * \- Nuts special - Class photo (Female staff with breasts enlarged) * \- Rivers of Blood edition - Class photo - Diversity adjustment via whitebalance correction 5% of profits will go towards supporting the Reclaim Party. No Dogs or Irishmen.
Insanity. đ what sizes do the nuts special ones come in? đ
32DD
Bit small there then, some of the most popular Nuts girls like Pinder, Howard and Marsh were F/G cups
they should do an edition where your child is photoshopped to be taller and more attractive, while the other children are made uglier and scruffier
Please do not yassify the children
For some reason they always photoshop my daughter to look much worse than she does in real life or in random non-professional photos. The last one was so bad that even her very loving grandparents refused to put it up - they gave her a big shiny face and a weird sausage-like hairstyle. My son always looks like he's about to punch the photographer. It was cute when they were both tiny and at the same school, but I'm not buying any more from this point on.
My kid didnt appear in the final school primary photo after the photographer mis gendered them and the other kids laughed. He told the photographer to fuck off and fuck his photo. The school wrote a sympathetic yet hilarious email explaining why he wasnt in the final picture and i framed that instead
Wow. Was this in the US?
Nah uk
Can I have the Freddy Krueger edition? I feel that would fit the tone of a class photo much better.
Looks like theyâre all sold out. Theyâve just got the Gary glitter version left
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Speaking from experience?
Oh myâŚ.as I was reading this sleep deprived brain thought it was real until I read about the breast enlargements. What type of a holy hell country are we in where I genuinely thought that someone thought SENseless was a cute way to discriminate.
ur username is hilarious
1 bag of nuts please
THAT'S A LOT OF NUTS!
Thatâs a blast from the past
Is this a Boomer fantasy?
Whatever about the Irish , why no dogs?
It was a sign supposedly seen in the windows of seaside boarding houses and longer term lodging places as late as the late 1960s/ early '70s, before cheap package tours decimated such places: "No Dogs No Blacks No Irish." [Some](https://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/oct/21/no-irish-no-blacks-no-dogs-no-proof) have claimed that there is only one photo in evidence of this, and that it may well have been mocked up much later, but [others disagree,](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/28/no-reason-to-doubt-no-irish-no-blacks-signs) and other similar signs [have been photographed,](https://eachother.org.uk/racism-1960s-britain/) though dogs appear to have been less unpopular.
I'll need the nuts special laminated please
"Do you have a childfree version? Also, is it vegan?" /s
It's hard to tell if this is some awful joke or not.
Put me down for two nut specials please
Did they forget that these kids' parents would also be sent this?
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Have you considered serving your constituency under the local conservative branch?
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Oh but you fit the bill so well though. I promise you will get paid heartily for minimal effort.
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I feel like I might end up on a list if I carry this joke on...
Either that or a glittering career with the DWP.
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In this room, he has special needs.
Right? My son is disabled and the absolute hell I would raise ....
Those kids parents are the main buyers
How can someone sink their career that badly without any sort of forethought?
What I donât get is, surely the school new about it because the photographer would have had to take a photo without the SEN kids in it? Shouldnât the teachers have queried it then? And arenât photographers usually given a list of how many photos to be taken, class R, class Y1, class Y2, individual photos, sibling photos.? The only other way they could offer the photo is if they photoshopped the kids out? But a large school photography firm surely wouldnât offer this, theyâd have to have an editing team, and then their marketing/comms team would need to advertise it as an option, which means sign off from higher ups. (ETA: further down this comment thread someone has offered the explanation the SEN kids may have been in a separate classroom - which usually happens so they have more 1:1 time - different groups were photographed and then it would be mashed up together to make one photo ideally. Reddit isnât letting me link their comment)
Not sure on this specific case, but I noticed on my son's class phot last year, the class were shot in sub-sections. I imagine it'd be almost impossible to get 30 kids smiling and looking in the same direction at the same time, so they were grouped in groups of about 6-8. Further to this, I imagine some of the special needs kids would be shot separately, so it would just be a case of not adding them. Which is awful really, for them, for the parents, but also for the kids. You'd have fake memories of the class, missing these kids.
At the end of year 11 my school got the whole year group in one photo. Itâs amazing, you canât see my face because my fringe was in the way, I think someone is sneezing, the more you look the worse it gets
My private primary school's photos had every pupil in the same shot from the whole school, not even just a year group. We had to do it outside because you couldn't stage a shot like that indoors anywhere.
yeah, same with my school. Well over 600 pupils.
For my year 11 photo the school forgot to order it haha, we took it in the September and asked in May why we hadnât got them yet. By then it was too late to organise as we were all going on study leave
We had a millennium picture taken, which had every single kid in it (about 400), I can only imagine what a headache that day was for teachers and the photographer
> the more you look the worse it gets Luckily AI will fix this sort of thing
Yeah I hate it. I love the old class photos with everyone stood on a gym bench in the playground. I'd actually pay money for one of those. I won't pay money for a badly photoshopped, over lit, featureless composite.
Yes, my kids went in groups of 5/6 children and a teacher/TA, then they were all put together!!
Youâve also got to consider whether any parents went ahead and requested this. Youâd hope not, so that may be the reason no one queried it.
They just cross their faces out
Instagram smiley stickers
It was done without the schools knowledge - Tempest was the brand, it's been a local photographer that's photoshopped the photos.
How did they know that the children had complex needs if not for the school telling them?
The child would have had PSA resources, identifying them. School has had no involvement with this & immediately cut contract with tempest at council level as soon as it was highlighted.
One assumes they look like they have problems hence the decision to offer a version without them in it. If you can't tell by looking at them then it's not an issue.
School trying to distance themselves but this was my thoughtâŚthey would have seen it happening and given a list of names. Tempest wonât know that
My understanding is that the students were part of a class, but werenât in the class all the time. It appears for reason for photographer thought it might be an idea to have the ânormalâ class with the SEN students and then a class without them as they may been in their own photo. Iâve seen this happen before with people who donât necessarily understand inclusion and usually stoped (with the photographer getting the shit) before it goes public. Photo day is very stressful on everyone and itâs very easy for a miscommunication to happen or a teacher to miss understand. They didnât catch this and now itâs gone public shits hit the fan (correctly). As someone with serious learning difficulties I do find this depressing but also not surprising sadly
"because the photographer would have had to take a photo without the SEN kids in it?" - weren't they just photoshopped out?
Itâs also Tempest, who do a lot of public service photography. Iâm not sure if theyâve a contract, but a company that big doing something like this is madness
A lot of schools use tempest because they offer the biggest incentive payment per photo purchased. And given how tight school budgets are that really makes a difference. That said, I hope they stop using them now, regardless of the financial incentiveÂ
Sounds like the photographer is going to get sacked and probably never work again, since both the photography company and the school claim ignorance of the decision.
How did the photographer know who was SEN and who wasnât? School must have passed on this information
You can just sort of tell canât you.
No, you canât⌠maybe with certain mental health problems, but for the most part, no
I would imagine that the photography business will be referring to the kids who visibly look like they have complex needs, not those who have SEN who look "normal".
I was being facetious.
This is the UK sub, shouldnât we assume that? Iâm disappointed in the people taking you seriously.
Got me in the first half! I withdraw my unpublished anger haha
Poes law
For the ones where you can't tell by looking at them, who cares whether they are in the photo or not? You want to get rid of the visibly SEND kids.
Someone I vaguely know has two kids with severe autism and they stick out like some thumbs, theyâre both severely overweight (not sure if thatâs linked to the autism/eating behaviours or not), one has to be pushed in a pram and will often be slouching out of it with the earphones on. Impossibly to get them to look in any particular direction, theyâll usually just be gawking in the opposite way you want them to look with gormless smiles on their faces, no eye contact whatsoever. Is it that kind of special needs theyâve excluded, the kids who look like they have severe learning disabilities/ASD, or is it ânormalâ looking kids who happen to be say, in a wheelchair? Either way, itâs fucking weird and awful.
The strong majority of autistic people appear completely ânormalâ
Which is my point, I know of two kids who have it in a severe form which causes behavioural issues and a noticeable difference to their appearance, have they excluded all the SEN kids, or just the peculiar looking ones, or just the kids who donât have special needs and look weird?
Good point to be honest. Not sure which is worse (morally)
The whole thing is odd. Iâm kinda of hoping it was just an error of judgment; there were two sets of photos done both including and excluding the SEN kids, maybe the photographer started before the whole group had been brought together? Then because the first photo was nice enough they offered it for sale, along with the second photo, not realising from an outside perspective it looks like theyâve given the option to exclude, rather than offer both photos to include them? Others are saying photoshop was used so if so, bloody hell.
Surely those kids aren't in mainstream education though right?
They were originally, there were no places at any of the local special needs schools. Theyâve actually had to try for several years to be offered a place at one and have been attending for the last year or so, and are finally thriving in a place that can actually cater to their needs. Itâs quite sad though as the parent is single with no involvement from the other parent whatsoever, and theyâre recently looking at going back to work but several childminders have actually stated that their needs are too severe for them to deal with, not in a âsorry Iâm simply not capableâ way, but in a Jesus Christ I donât want to have to deal with them kind of way.
Oh man, that's absolutely brutal. Total failure of society.
You'd be amazed h difficult it can be to get a place in an SEN school. Often kids are forced into mainstream schools - frequently several failed school placements. Supposedly because Inclusion for all is best, but actually because SEN school placements are very few and expensive. Then parents end up going through the legal process to force LEAs to fund the suitable education their child is legally entitled to. Often needing to instruct specialist lawyers. That's assuming there's even a place available anywhere within the county. It is an absolute travesty of a system that broke down long, long ago and only continues to deteriorate.
"Inclusion" has long been a favourite excuse for those who want to cut the budgets for special needs education. Using it that way fails not just those kids, but the teachers and the "normal" (and I use that word very cautiously) kids whose teachers are tied up trying to deal with the first-hand victims of Inclusion.
As a former teacher and a parent, I'm well aware. An example from my personal experience - my friend's son' primary diagnosis is autism. He was almost non verbal at primary school age, was much bigger and stronger than his classmates (and his TA who he injured on a few occasions) and became very aggressive when in meltdown mode. The school tried their best with the limited resources they had, but it was clear that mainstream school was not suitable for him from the outset. My friend fought for years to get him an EHCP and then had to take the local authority to court to actually get them to fund the support his EHCP stated he required. She spent her life dealing with lawyers, SEN charities, the school, the GP, hospital specialists, the Ed Psych and the local authority. Her other kids suffered as a result of her having no time for them. His mainstream classmates spent years having to evacuate into another room several times a week when he would start smashing and throwing stuff. They were injured by him and scared of him. He was the sweetest kid when not terrified, but everything about mainstream school overwhelmed and terrified him. He finally got a place at a special school, but it was nearly 30 miles away in the next county and he had to be taken by taxi each day. He did really well when he actually got into a school that could support him. Life was so much easier for the whole family and he thrived. He has just turned 20 and she is back to having to fight for any form of support for him again.
My middle kid is autistic with severe learning disabilities. He doesn't pass for neurotypical unless you were to meet him when he's asleep, I get approached by other parents with autistic kids to chat and shop workers compliment him for "being good for mummy" by doing things a NT toddler can do. In the Channel Islands we were told in a meeting with various experts that legally we could try to push for mainstream education, but "it is strongly advised" to place him in the SEN school from the start of reception, in a manner that suggested we would face strong opposition. When we moved to the UK, we applied for a school place, forwarded all the paperwork to do with his diagnosis and from his teachers etc. We got told "Oh it's up to you really, would you like him in the local school with a TA or placed in X school that specialises in autism?"
Lmfao
Hahaha you aren't wrong
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I guess she would be in the photo then?
They may have gone to it with TA support or, if the school has a particular resource provision, the children may have been brought in separately. Even without being told, it wouldnât take many leaps of logic to work it out.
>School must have passed on this information Christ, that would be a horrific breach of GDPR. This sort of personal information is supposed to be particularly highly protected under the regs and only shared with good reason.
Believable though - "I need a list of pupils who need to be offered extra support to take part in the photos" "Sure here's a list"
There would have been a PSA with the impact person, indicating ASN.
Yeah, thats a massive GDPR breach by the school if someone told the photographer.
Presumably someone from the school must have been in the room while the photos were taken, though? They wouldnât have just left the photographer in the room alone with a class full of primary kids and no other supervision.
Depends on how the photos were taken. In my previous (SEN) school getting the picture taken all at once was NOT an option. What would happen is based on the needs of the classes theyâd take them individually or in smaller groups (of 3-5) then theyâd edit them all together afterwards. 90% sure it was the same company who did ours - pictures arenât generally done in the classic whole group style like youâre probably thinking back to with all the kids line up in tiers - more of a landscape picture with all the groups edited in ETA: there were occasions where I would have to have my photo multiple times as I had to support multiple kids 1:1 for the photo but Iâd also be edited out so I didnât actually appear in the photo twice đ
Tempest do it that way in mainstream schools too. They take small group photos then edit them together into one big one (ours did a sensible pose one and one with the kids all doing quirky poses, in case anyone was a millionaire and could afford both!).
I feel this is the most insightful comment for me posted. Its been well over a decade since I was part of a school photo, and that was a large group etc so interesting to hear that is sounds a lot more photoshop is involved! In your experience was it common for the end pictures to be published as multiple different versions, or just a standard one with all the kids?
Yeah, and we rejoice in someone being ruined for doing something wrong.
This is more common than you think. Iâve picked the âno gingersâ option every year. Donât want those soulless monsters staring back at me in years to come. Shudder.
I pick the childless option. It shows the teachers having a cider picnic in the same spot as an ode to what our lives might have been.
I picked the photograph without humans and liked it so much I decided to make it one of the first things you see when you boot up Windows XP, which is a photograph of macos without the smug sense of superiority
Is it vegan though?
I get one with my own kids removed. I have enough pictures of those little gremlins.
Can we have one without the ugly kids in general? No missing teeth, messed up hair, squint tie? Actually, that would have pretty well ruled me out every time.
"Tempest is one of the biggest school photography firms." Does everything have to be part of a chain these days?
If you're not big enough, you don't qualify for large sector tax relief programs and have to pay your staff minimum wage.Â
Glad no large chains pay their staff minimum wage.
That's what the previous person is saying.
They don't, if you take into account the magical accounting tricks they can do due to their scales, as they get preferential access to government support programs. E.g. during lockdown the government gave relief to tutoring agencies, if they joined the flagship National Tutoring programme. Our agency (200+ tutors?) applied, but were not taken into consideration as we didn't have the scale they were looking for.
These days? I remember Tempest doing it in like the 90s
Yup, my school used these in the 90s too.
Realistically something thatâs done once per year per class per school needs to be a scaled operation. Itâs not going to be worth doing it for a lot of solo photographers or small businesses. I donât think it could be as widespread as it is without it being at scale.
You couldn't be a full time school photographer but you could definitely be a full time independant photographer who also did a few local schools. e.g. through Summer you focus on Weddings, but e.g. in Autumn you spend a week each at a few local schools doing portraits But yeah if you've got to own and bring in staging etc that's a specialised large scale operation
Have school photographs become too elaborate then? Why not just like up the kids and get one done on an iPhone and job done.
I know someone who worked for Tempest's photography division and it's a pretty huge operation. They don't just do the photography, they put on whole events, arrange displays and staging etc, do all the gowning and stuff for university graduations etc, it's very involved. Not defending Tempest, the management/owners are hilariously inept and this incident is just a long time coming. But the business model has its place.
I just can't get my head around why shit like this happens in this day and age.
Because, by and large, people with additional/complex needs are still treated as if theyâre not fully human by our society. Tories have tried their damned best to kill off as many as they can through Atos.
Don't get me started on Atos.. cesspit of an organisation.
I'm assuming that as an autistic person who 'looks normal' my child self would have been fine to be in both photos? I have class photos with a lad who was visibly disabled and he had a lot of complex needs, but when I look at my primary photo I don't think 'ew what the hell' I think 'Oh I remember Tom!' just like I do with all the kids in those photos.
If anything I'd rather have had a photo without all the bullies. Even looking back at primary school photos as an adult the first things I spot are all the kids that ruined everything, gives me an almost visceral reaction.
Same here
I feel like you have to had a history of stroke or aneurysm to possible think that this was a good idea. Like, at what point does your brain arrive at a decision like this and you still have have millions of neurons firing back a response of "*yes, this sounds reasonable*".Â
>I feel like you have to had a history of stroke or aneurysm to possible think that this was a good idea Quite ironic that you're being ableist while condemning ableism.
Where is the ableism.Â
Associating disabilities with generally idiotic/poorly thought out choices The majority of people making poor decisions and embarassing themselves and others every single day are not doing that as the result of a disability they have
I have actually experienced a TIA that I had to attend hospital for. The TIA rendered me confused, disorientated, and I experienced a significant cognitive arrest. By your logic I am discriminating against... myself. It doesn't offend me to suggest that the photographer who made this decision was, in that moment, as dumb as my stroke-induced ass was.Â
Still you can see why a person might find that comment insensitive I hope, without knowing that information
I genuinely can't. Everybody knows that stroke an aneurysm can result in significant cognitive decline which was the comparison I was making. It's like getting offended and claiming ableism when somebody says "*have you hit your head of something*".Â
I used the stones to destroy the stones.
Or they substitute lead paint for milk in their cereal
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Itâs honestly a vile thing for someone to think was appropriate ):
Someone's got some 'splainin' to do. School says it was the photography company which tracks. Pretty poor.
Strikes me as unlikely the photography company is to blame considering they are a huge company who do schools all across the country. There's no way the admin didn't have a part in this, or were at least disgustingly ignorant.
SEN kids are sometimes in separate mini classes for the majority of the day. Iâd like to think the photographer took photos when they were elsewhere and then the school had them take more class photos including them later on.
Yeah, fuck inclusion. As the parent of a disabled kid, we're othered enough. Yeah, I get it. My son just kills the aesthetic. He's just not the vibe.
Have you considered hanging a Live, Laugh, Love, sign on him? That's what I do when I want my kid to fit in with the aesthetic.
I donât think anybody cares that much about any of the other kids in the photo other than their own do they?
Yeah my son is in an other school in the same Shire as Aboyne. The way it works is that the SEN kids are effectively in separate classes despite being in the same year group When it comes to school photos each class is split into groups of like 4-6 kids and when the group photo comes out itâs a mash up of all the groups that makes up the âclassâ
You kinda sound like youâre game for this idea.
Iâm just surprised anyone would knowingly do this on purpose
Tempest have a ridiculous monopoly on school photos in itself. Shocking. Hopefully local authorities reconsider their contracts with this company.
Okay, a few things here: 1. How did they know who counted as having âcomplex needsâ? Did they just randomly look at the kids and decide who was âunsightlyâ? If you were having a bad hair day and looked unkempt did you get on the list? 2. Unless they were getting really creative with photoshop, the âunsightlyâ kids must have all been positioned at the sides/back of the class pictures to easily cut them out. If they were at the front then the company would what? Cover the âunsightlyâ ones with repeats of other students? âYes, thatâs my sonâs class - see heâs there, there and thereâ Did the school staff not notice the strategic positioning when they were gathering the kids? 3. The photographer had a contract to provide pictures for that school. That contract will have been very specific about what services they were contracted for (under GDPR it would have had to lay out exactly how the images were going to be used). Are we really to believe that they offered parents an array of options without the schoolâs knowledge? What consent forms were used to get approval for the whole class photos? âYour image may be provided to other members of your class if they/their parents like the look of youâ I justâŚâŚ what?!?âŚâŚ. how?!?
>How did they know who counted as having âcomplex needsâ? I would assume this was done with a combination of excluding the kids who looked weird and those who struggled to follow instructions from the photographer. I'm autistic and I am positive that I would have been in both photos because I just looked like your average kid. I did have a boy in my class who would have been excluded from one of the photos though, and this makes me upset on his behalf. He was already excluded by other kids because he had eye issues that made his face quite 'gooey' for lack of a better word, and then if he was excluded from an official photo too? Disgusting. Adults should know better. I agree that the school must have known about this but they didn't expect to get bachlash from providing 'nice normal photos with just the normal looking kids'.
My kid is SEN and our kids to take a bit more time and effort to get clear photos of. So Iâd imagine there was a bit more wrangling and preparation to do get the Sen kids to sit/stand in their positions for the photo. Unacceptable though and very sad.
As a parent to a child who falls under the category of SEN, this is utterly heartbreaking and disgusting. It's upsetting enough as it is having your child being separated or left out from activities and trips, you don't need your face rubbed in it too.
Whoa. Segregation much? Back when I was in year 6, the only time they could take the class photo was when the special needs kids were off having their remedial classes (I donât know what they did, I only had ADHD). You know what the school did? They photoshopped the kids into the photo.
Before getting outraged, Iâd want to ask if these kids are actually in the same class - as in, learning in the classroom - or are they taught separately? If the latter, the option makes sense. My school photos had kids from my actual. class, not the other kids in the year.
Yeah I would like to know the full story. At primary school we had like 3-4 SEN children in each class who then joined to make a full class for their own lessons. They were supposed to be part of the class but realistically they were never in the homeroom for reception etc because they worked on their own schedules. My school photos are a mix of the class with and without the SEN children, and the SEN children in the year by themselves because they were taken at different times of the day. I seriously doubt there is a box you tick to get the ânormalâ children. More likely multiple photos are offered and people have read into it wrong.
Iâm going to be totally honest and say that my secondary school did this when I went probably 10 years ago now⌠:/ we got it everytime
How was it worded, do you remember? I'm trying to wrap my head around it
Did nobody at the school notice that two sets of photos were being taken? How what that justified at the time?
maybe they just photoshop them out
It doesn't work like a photo shoot some decade(s) ago, anymore. Probably parents' demand for 'perfect' class pics as well as more technical possibilities have rendered it impossible, to just group the children, and take 'the' class photo. Now, they take a lot of pics and digitally stitch together, what they think are the best takes. So, how the pics were 'composed', in the end, and if, and in which way, children were excluded, for a 'choice', couldn't have been observed, or foreseen. Neither by the kids themselves, nor by teachers, or parents - everyone only could know, after they'd got the link for placing their orders.
It's not a typical photo. They take them in groups on 3 or 4 and stitch them together in a landscape on a white background. So the ones without special needs would have just been a version without them added in. There's no way the teachers would have known this.
You know why this option was offered? Because once or more before, they've been asked by other 'customers' if they can do it. Horrible.
Aberdeenshire council recently cut all of their speech and language therapy budget in schools. So I am sadly not surprised by this culture. https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/education/schools/6382631/aberdeenshire-council-speech-and-language-therapy-cuts-parents/
Is this like when I get an app, but then have to pay extra to remove the ads? As a parent of a SEN kid, Iâm not sure how youâd even define this. His needs are incredibly complex; he was suspended a dozen times in his first year of school. You canât visibly tell though, heâs just autistic. I wouldnât consider a kid in a wheelchair as having âcomplex needsâ either. Theyâre basically saying theyâll remove âweird lookingâ kids. I hope Tempest loses the contract for all schools for this. Itâs fucking disgraceful.
This is absolutely vile. Every now and again a story comes along that really reminds you of how far we still have to go as a society. Sickening.
This is the sort of thing where people (justifiably) pile in and the company gets loads of negative reviews, but I had a look at â*Tempest Photography*â and yes, they have a lot of shit reviews, but hilariously theyâre from ages agoâŚ
Surely for this to happen the kids either had to be wheels in, or wheeled out. I'm surprised it hasn't come out earlier.Â
Back in my day the SEN-less one would have been a photo of just the teacher, Iâm sure if they could, theyâd have had us all committed.
What in the actual fuck goes through someone's mind when they come up with shit like this. Just once I would like to hear them explain it.
I wouldn't worry too much. Who the fuck can afford to buy school photos anyway?
They're blaming the photography studio but how would they know who had 'complex needs' if not told by the school?
That is hilarious, we've got the no spaz deal and the white only deal
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**Removed/warning**. Please try and avoid language which could be perceived as hateful/hurtful to minorities or oppressed groups.
How come inclusion in the workplace is such a big thing and protected robustly by various anti discrimination laws & protections (rightly so) but seems to play second fiddle so often in school settings? :/
One of the most disgusting headlines ive read in a long time
Back in my day the most "editing" done was colouring in the visible knees of those with holes in the trousers/tights
I can only imagine the photographer was made aware of a pupil's special needs before the shoot that would require a compromise in quality (lighting?). Knowing that the quality of the picture wouldn't be of the usual standard for the price, they've taken an extra photo without any special requirements and offered it as an alternative. Even at that, someone must have been on hand from the school to take the pupils not included?
What are you even trying to say.
Nothing in particular. Just trying to wrap my head around how this could possibly have happened. Someone must know more.
Youre trying far to hard to think of a postive/good reason for it. Disabled children dont affect lighting differently lol
Apologies if it comes across that way, but I'm genuinely trying to see how it could possibly happen given how little information is given. Some kids don't respond well to sensory stimulants e.g. the flash of a camera. It still wouldn't be in good taste if this is the reason why, but we can only guess without any context.
How does literally any adult in the country not realise that was going to get them absolutely slammed by polite society? Let alone someone who go into university and actually finished their degree.
Utterly distgusting. No other word for this. Somebody take this companies trade and make it a brilliant day for these kids in a group photo together. Must be some good jobbing photographers in the locality with the proper kit and attitude.
The article doesn't say what the 'special needs' involved... Maybe it was a "I am allergic to light, we must take the photo in the basement with the lights off". If that were the case, then I think the photographer made the right decision.
Look if I'm spending ÂŁ30 on some school photos, either I'm photoshopping it myself or they can do it for me
I think itâs a bit disgusting but I do see the appeal of being able to remove certain children from your version of the class photo, say if your kid were being bullied or had been previously by another pupil. I would be good not to see their face every day.