The wrong kind of Christmas box

Recently in the news was a report of a head teacher who was banning the giving out of party invitations at school,  as this meant some children felt excluded if they were not invited. I applauded her decision.

It put me in mind of those post boxes put up in classrooms for the posting of Christmas cards from pupils to each other. How well I remember those dreaded boxes in my own school classroom, with their contents waiting to delight or humiliate; the awful fear that I would be the one with the fewest cards. It mattered not a jot whom the cards came from; it was the number of cards that mattered, for therein lay the measure of one's popularity (or lack of it).

This cruel (and unnecessary) practice is alive and well in some schools even today. Quite recently, a small grandson of mine, an affectionate and sensitive child, was mortified to find that he was the recipient of just one card when the post box was emptied at the end of term.

Isn't it time that this kind of thing was discouraged in schools? Life is quite difficult enough for less popular   children. Let's not make it even harder; especially at Christmas.