Six year old back at Five Islands; principal denies kicking her out

September 08, 2016 in Regional

jennings-1Jennings Warner, the six-year-old girl who recently encountered difficulties with being accepted at Five Islands Primary School, will be able to attend normal classes at that facility, based on the instructions of Director of Education Clare Browne.

Browne ruled that Jennings should return to class pending another assessment.

The first evaluation concluded that she was a slow learner who had special needs and should be transferred from the government school — a decision that her father Bernard Warner had challenged.

Warner told OBSERVER media on Tuesday that his daughter was kicked out of school when he took her there on Monday, but the Principal of the Five Islands Primary School, Sandy Lewis, rubbished the allegations.

She accused Warner of using his daughter to obtain public sympathy. “She was never put out of school. Don’t worry with Warner; he is pushing his own agenda,” she said. According to Lewis, Warner has refused to accept that the child has special needs.

“He was recommended to take her to the special needs centre at Greenbay and he refused. When he came with the child on Monday, I told him I was awaiting a decision by the director. I never kicked out the child,” she said.

Lewis described Warner as an antagonist, and called on him to “stop using his child as a pawn to push his personal agenda”. She said that instead of awaiting the final decision he stormed to the media with “untruths and ridiculous allegations”.

Lewis added that the incident can cause more harm than good to the child.