A school pet saved my sister’s life. At our Sussex prep school, pupils took turns to take Hobnob, the classroom hamster, home for a week to look after him. When it was our go, my sister and I would fight over who got to feed him. One evening, at Hobnob’s dinner time, the two of us raced full pelt across the house to be the first to get to his cage. She tripped and whacked her head very hard on the stone kitchen floor. My mother took her to hospital for a scan, just in case. There was no sign of concussion, but the scan revealed something unexpected – hydrocephalus, water on the brain, which is fatal if left untreated. My sister had the operation later that year.
Hobnob, then, was responsible for a great good, albeit indirectly. But do many schools have a Hobnob equivalent today? Or are school pets one of those small but joyful things jettisoned by the safetyism of modern education?
‘Writing a risk assessment for a snail was quite possibly the hardest thing I’ve ever done’
Since 2008, the RSPCA has maintained that keeping pets at school is cruel, recommending instead the woefully inadequate alternative of soft animal toys. Many heads and governing boards, ever concerned about tight budgets and maintenance costs, will no doubt have heeded the advice.
