One can hardly believe that here we are in the year 2009, and as a community we are supposed to be impressed by the disillusioned ramblings of the headmistress.

What a lovely story she created as she wrote about visiting several classrooms where she found delightful students hard at work and full of the love of learning.

It was a vibrant animation of reality, the only thing missing was the children skipping through the tulips.

It made me ill - sick to my stomach.

As a parent of school-aged children I am aware first hand of the reality.

Numerous parents have withdrawn their children from TCHS.

Some of these children are fortunately enrolled elsewhere however many of them have nowhere else to go for an education and have dropped out of the system altogether.

All children need acceptance and have a natural ability to want to learn but those who could not cope with the boredom, bullying and stress of being in a negative environment stay at home feeling segregated, depressed and angry.

There are various reasons for the breakdown in the education at TCHS.

Harassment from both staff and students, lack of structure, lack of support for victims of bullying, no functional behavior policy and lack of education.

These children range in ages from 11 to 14 years of age.

Many of them drop out at 15 with little or no education.

Exactly how many Year 11 and 12 students are there regularly attending school?

A great number of students find the atmosphere anything but welcoming and enthusiastic.

Is it any wonder we have so many disgruntled teens on our hands and what a huge cost to our society it is!

The education system is not entirely to blame for our social problems but it’s a great place to start as far as improving lives goes.

What we need is change, not a principal looking through rose-coloured glasses and living in a fairy tale.

I would much rather have the local results of the NAPLAN testing printed in the newsletter in lieu of the lovely, fanciful story that was created.