It's terrible that there are 5 year olds who have been abused or are in danger of it. But to abuse and traumatise ALL 5 year olds in an attempt to save them is appalling. How many of them can tell the difference between reality and what they have imagined? Asking them to visualize a traumatic experience, then make it even more real by imaging how they would feel about it - that's setting them up right then and there to either attract it, be fearful of it, or imagine it when it didn't happen.

I don't think it would be over-reacting to put in a formal complaint to the school and the Ministry of Education - how else will it end? And Home schooling - go for it! Lots of resources here. And if you don't know anyone who home schools in NZ, I can probably find you some buddies.

This, plus a post by @methusalem that I commented on earlier, got me thinking about what the classes used to be called. First two years were primers. Why did we pronounce it "primmers", when they were clearly to prime us for the education process? Standard 1-4 were presumably to install the standards of behaviour a compliant population would adhere to. Maybe Forms 1-7 were to form us into model citizens.

Changing the names to Years 1-13 have hidden that agenda a little, maybe. But also made it so the education process can be started at 5, rather than just preparing for two years.

Anyway, I've said enough, getting off my soapbox now.