I think we need to be careful heading forward. If anyone thinks the coverage of these incidents and our response is not having an effect, they are sadly mistaken. My little girl came home from school yesterday and said "Had a bad day dad" She went into a whole load of things that had happened, trivial child stuff and then she came out with this...
"I don't really like my substitute teacher."
"Why not?"
"She was a bit mean dad, and very strict"
"Some teachers are babe"
"She was a muslim too dad. When she walked in we all took a big gasp of air and we were sat right back in our seats"
"Just because she's a muslim babe, it doesn't mean she's a bad person. Anyway how did you know she was a muslim?"
"She had one of those things on her head"
That to me is just a really sad situation. Bear in mind we have been trying to keep her away from the news footage where possible, and she'd never hear anything negative about muslims in my household. Whatever she has picked up, whatever is being discussed in the playground, these kids are like sponges. Sponges are indiscriminate in what they soak up. Now I sat with her for a while and went through a few things to explain the differences - she's an intelligent kid (takes after her mam) so she understood and had obviously considered it herself. How often is that situation being repeated across the country right now? How many are speaking up and actually being educated? How many are just forming opinions and not having it corrected?
It concerned me as never before has she even said anything remotely like that. She understood about different religions, chose not to believe in it herself, but its never bothered her at all. She did come home once and say "dad there's a brown boy in my class now" but that is just kids saying what they see

Its easy enough to help them understand and they work it out for themselves anyway. Even the missus said this time "maybe they should have warned the children?". FFS if we're at that stage then I'm worried about harmony heading forward.