Parent life / Classroom pets · 2012 and 2017
Fluffy the Class Hamster Is Booked Every Weekend
An English infant school put a weekend sign-up sheet for its hamster on the classroom door. One parent online dreaded the whole idea for a very specific reason.
In September 2017, the teacher of Amber Class at Telford Infant School in Leamington Spa, England, wrote to parents about Fluffy, the class hamster. Children took turns taking Fluffy home for the weekend. To keep track, a half-term schedule would go up on the classroom door, first come, first served.
Fluffy, the letter explained, "is always in great demand, loves being handled and visiting your homes." Not everyone would get a turn right away. And if you did not want Fluffy, that was absolutely fine; your child would have plenty of chances to look after him in class.
I want to thank whoever wrote that sentence. It is the only written permission to say no that I have ever received from a school.
Parents disagree. In a 2012 Mumsnet thread a teacher asked about getting classroom guinea pigs. One parent said their child's class had a hamster, with a form about allergies and weekend hosting, and thought it was great for children without pets, since it teaches them to care for something and follow instructions.
Another parent begged the teacher not to, unless the teacher would take the animals home on weekends and holidays. This parent was always terrified when teachers made a weekend with the guinea pig sound like a lovely special treat, "'Cos the bloody thing would be bound to die on my watch."
Every parent who has hosted a class pet has had the same thought on Saturday night, and one of them typed it.
We hosted the hamster from the youngest's class last spring. Its name was Biscuit. It came with a cage, a bag of food, a laminated card of instructions and a log for families to write in. The youngest read every entry aloud. One family had written "Biscuit ate a carrot." Another had written "Biscuit was very good." Another had written "Biscuit got out but we found him."
Biscuit got out at our house too, on Saturday night. He was behind the radiator. The youngest found him by lying very still on the floor until he came to her.
On Monday morning she wrote in the log herself, in her best handwriting: "Biscuit had a busy weekend." Then she handed him back to her teacher with both hands, the way you hand back something that you nearly lost and did not.
Sources
The public records, school pages and published accounts this story draws on. Where the story imagines a scene or a line of dialogue, that is the column’s telling, not a quotation.
- Telford Infant School: Fluffy the Hamster, September 4, 2017 telfordinfant.eschools.co.uk
- Classroom Pets — Mumsnet parent discussion mumsnet.com
- Class Pet Weekend Care — r/hamstercare reddit.com