To Helen Macindoe, regarding the Museum excursion.

It has come to my attention via the MyBradfield website that the students who failed to attend said excursion have been issued ‘1 N Warning event which includes 1 N Letter’. According to the rationale given for this, it is due to “Lack of Participation and Attendance”, and that the outstanding work issued on that excursion must be completed and handed in immediately, if not by the 28th of July ’07.
This interests me, because logic would have it that if attendance was not met, how could one be judged for lack of participation? I did not go to said excursion, so therefore I could not be judged for lack of participation (note that “participation” and “attendance” are not the same thing or used interchangeably). 

This brings me to the conclusion that, this “N Warning Letter Reason and Description”, is not in the correct context- that it is in fact used to issue an N Letter to students who have insufficient class attendance and inadequate participation during the classes that they do attend. I am willing to bet that this “Reason” was the only one that seemed accountable for the offence taken, but it is not a functioning offence (to fail to attend an excursion) and does not cover the basis of outstanding work.
In this subject alone two previous excursions have been scheduled before your employment to this course during Term 2, ’07 by the previous teacher, Felicity. Namely an excursion to the CSIRO (which I did attend) that >12 members of the class attended, and an excursion to Balmoral Beach (which I did not attend) with the same or less students attending, and at neither time were any of the students who failed to attend the excursion issued an N Letter, however they were held accountable for catching up with the work they missed that was issued during the excursion.

I understand the difficulty with which you experienced in scheduling this trip to the Museum in Term 2, and I believe the resulting students attending was embarrassing to the face of Bradfield, and the disturbance this must have caused the staff at the Museum, and I believe this is your real motive for the issue of these N Letters. Unfortunately, and regrettably, I must correct you. Under your jurisdiction as teacher at Bradfield Senior College as of 2007; to issue students an N Letter for not attending an excursion (which has not been done before) that put you out (the only difference), is just plain fascism.

I agree that the number of students who did not attend this (and all) excursion(s) is abhorrent, but I can see no where in the Bradfield Senior College policy that issuing an N Letter charge is acceptable, and can only assume the Director would agree. 

If anything, please change the N Letter status to occurring to those who fail to submit the outstanding work by the due date (if this is not already the case), and please correct the “Reason and Description” of this occurrence so that it is on the basis of outstanding or incomplete work by a due date, which is supported by the Bradfield policy to your discrepancy.

Sincerely,