Parents Call For Segregation In Classes
2016-10-05
Parents in the border village of Aston are calling for separate classes for children coming into the local school from the adjacent Sheffield area. They claim that mixed classes are impacting negatively on their children’s language skills, and that there could be long term detrimental effects on their future life chances.
People from Sheffield are affectionately known as Deedars. They suffer from a heredity speech impediment which prevents them from sounding the ‘th’ sound correctly, and so they replace it with a ‘D’ sound. But now the Aston parents fear that the impediment could actually be contagious.
Peter Piper, whose 14 year old son goes to Aston Academy is one of those calling for immediate segregation, with separate classes for anyone from Sheffield, irrespective of whether they’re currently displaying Deedar symptoms or not. Peter first noticed there might be a problem a few weeks after his son started mixing with Deedars at school…
“My lad came home from school and I said ‘Has tha ad a good day son, and he turned round and said ‘Oh da knows wor it’s like dad di have de workin all day’. I were appalled. Tha dunt send thee kids to school to come back talking not reight That’s what happens when they’re mixing with Deedars.”
We put Peter’s concerns to the local education department, and a spokesman denied there was a problem. “I’m married to a Deedar myself,” he said, “So l I fully understand how annoying this impediment can be, but the only way forward is integration into the wider community. And it isn’t contagious, I’m absolutely certain of dat.”.
So for now at least, the mixed classes are set to continue as normal. Regular readers may recall a similar unresolved situation at the other side of town in Swinton where an influx of pupils from Barnsley resulted in an outbreak of Dingle-talk, and a certain amount of confusion over the boundaries of intra-family relationships.
