School sparks uproar for telling student, 12, she couldn't wear Union Jack dress to diversity day

7NEWS

2 days ago

A British schoolgirl was sent home for wearing a Union Jack dress for 'diversity day', with one of her teachers saying it was inappropriate and offering her a secondhand school uniform to wear.
Courtney Wright, 12, wore a Union Jack dress — similar to the famous dress worn by the Spice Girls' Geri Halliwell in the 1990s — to the Bilton School in Rugby, Warwickshire.
Parents had earlier been told the diversity day was a chance to 'celebrate the rich cultural diversity within (the) school community ... students across all year groups will have the opportunity to take part in a variety of cultural activities'.
Courtney had prepared a speech to celebrate all things British, which included tea, Shakespeare, fish and chips and the royal family.
However, a teacher told her she couldn't wear the dress, offering her the preloved school uniform.
Courtney refused, with her father Stuart Field, 47, called to pick her up from school.
Field told UK's The Sun: 'Her head of year bizarrely said that if she had worn a suit of armour or a nurse's outfit, she probably would have been allowed. It's ridiculous.
'The irony is they were having a cultural diversity day and yet they singled out a group of people. She's a grade-A student and they have vilified her and punished her for being proud of being British.'
The school later apologised to Courtney saying it offered its 'sincere and unreserved apologies' before adding it was 'learning from this experience'.
On Thursday, Perth Lord Mayor Basil Zempilas and Sunshine Coast Mayor Rosanna Natoli both took aim at the school while discussing the incident during Hot Topics on Sunrise.
'I struggle with this,' Zempilas said.
'I'm trying to work out what I think and then I put myself in this position: 'What if somebody did exactly the same thing here in Australia but wore the Australian flag as their outfit?'
'I don't think we'd be comfortable with that kid being told what the kid in the UK was told.
'The United Kingdom is a place of diverse communities. People from all over the world, a lot like Australia, who have settled there for a new life and a new start.
'I'm against this. I think you should be able to celebrate your own country on diversity day.'
Natoli agreed.
'For a teenage girl, it would be mortifying to have to put on someone else's uniform,' Natoli said.
'Inclusion is supposed to mean everybody. So that is whether or not you associate with British culture ... (it's about) recognising diversity across the board.
'So, I think what the school has done here is missed an opportunity to reflect right across the board what students and children and young people, and other people, all people, are feeling here which is their association to being British.
'I think it was a lost opportunity and sad for that particular student.'