A DROITWICH woman responding to protests outside a school in Birmingham surrounding the teaching of relationships, equality and everyone being different has raised £3,320 in a bid to get the books into even more primary schools.
Tracey Evans, 48, decided to take action as part of the ‘No Outsiders in our Schools’ scheme after watching the reports of protests.
The project was conceived by Andrew Moffat to teach children that everyone is different and that is fine.
The protestors have focused on four books out of the pack of 35, which reference families with two mummies, or two daddies, a boy who likes to wear dresses and a fairytale about two princes.
Tracey said: “I wanted to support the scheme of teaching children about different types of families.
“I discovered many schools do not have a budget for books so teachers are spending their own money.
“That is not right.”
Tracey set up a JustGiving page and has currently raised £3,320.
“The response has been overwhelming.
“This means that 12 primary schools can now benefit from the book packs.”
Tracey said although there has been perceived controversy surrounding the books, it should not be like that.
“It is not about ‘sex’ education.
“That would be entirely inappropriate.
“It is about ‘relationship’ education.
“That is not at odds with the argument ‘let children be children’.
“Children may be from non-traditional families and they should not be made to feel excluded when children from traditional families are drawing pictures of their own families or being picked up in the playground at home time by their care-givers.”
Tracey is seeking nominations of primary schools who would like one of the book packs.
All nominations received will be entered into a lottery-style draw.
Tracey added: “I am going to revise my target to continue raising funds just to see how many schools we can help.”
Anyone wanting to boost Tracey’s coffers further can go to JustGiving.com/crowdfunding/NoOutsidersBookDrive to donate.
Nominations for schools can also be made there.
