Dear Mr Dastagir,

I have come to you today to address a huge problem throughout the school which I feel is causing pain. I have come here today to break the shackles and free the victims of the mental pain. I have come here today to address ‘ banter’.

Banter has become an excuse for the pupils to insult others,’ as a joke ‘, and this is affecting the pupils of the school in lots of ways; like mentally lowering self-assurance, creating fights in many classes. Overall, banter is distracting pupils from their learning.

The reason that I feel ‘banter’ is an issue needing to be dealt with forcefully is because people use it as an excuse. People use it as an excuse to insult others, bring families into the matter, be racist, and many more insults. This is why I feel ‘banter’ has to be dealt with ‘forcefully’.

‘Its just Banter’ is just a way of saying it isn’t my fault that you were hurt, and saying that it was meant to be just a joke. They use ‘banter’ to say, also, it isn’t their responsibility that you didn’t take the ‘banter’ as a joke, but as an insult.

The penalty for using the phrase, ‘it’s just banter’ should have ruthless sanctions, perhaps one hour detention, for not taking responsibility for mentally injuring the ‘victim’s’ self esteem and mind-set.

‘Banter’ is also used slip past the sanctions for racism, and this is making students of this school feel that they are in-charge and this must be dealt with because it leads to fights, eventually. It leaves students feeling they have the rights to undermine a teacher and be rude to them.

One of the worst outcomes that ‘banter’ can cause is bullying, when one pupil begins to insult another, then calling it ‘banter’, the victim feels that they have been bullied. But the bully, (not aware that they are a bully), just explains that it is a joke, (which it was in the beginning, or it was meant to be,) hence attempting to escape the claws of the sanctions. And for a school with a ‘perfect ethos’ it has been destroyed, internally, by the students themselves. This is why I think that ‘banter’ must be dealt with very soon.

One of the worst insults that ‘banter’ is used to cover, is racism. Racism is covered by ‘banter’ because one pupil will say something to do with their skin color or their home country, as a joke, but the second student will probably not take it as a joke. A serious issue that must be dealt with emerges. When the 1st pupil calls it ‘banter’ when they are told off for being racist, that just makes it worse because the 2nd student does not feel they are equal to the 1st. This leads to further problems throughout the school; thus, this is one of the worse things banter covers.

Mr Dastagir, I hope you take this in as a serious problem, and please reply with any ideas that you have to dampen the sincerity of the situation. A few ideas that I had were, maybe you give a thirty minute or an hour detention. Or, possibly you could put anyone who calls the cussing (insults) ‘banter’ in referral for 2 days.

Yours sincerely,

Luke Spencer.