ONE of Britain's leading headmistresses has claimed children are becoming immersed in a materialistic "me, me, me society".
Vicky Tuck, president of the Girls' Schools Association, said parents were growing increasingly anxious that their daughters were growing up too fast, in a world seemingly dominated by "Botox and bingeing".
But Ms Tuck said the credit crunch might
bring unexpected benefits for the nation, by changing public attitudes, and she even hailed the economic downturn as "somehow bracing".
Ms Tuck, principal of Cheltenham Ladies' College, warned the annual conference of her association, which has more than 200 members, that the recession would mean private schools working harder to offer value for money, but urged them not to dilute traditional values.
Her views received a cool reception in Scotland, with critics claiming she was being "deliberately melodramatic" and using scare tactics to avoid parents pulling their children out of private education.
It emerged in September that pupil numbers at Scotland's independent schools had fallen for the first time in four years, with experts pinning much of the blame on the credit crunch.
Ms Tuck told the conference: "Sometimes, surrounded by media reports on Botox and bingeing, it's easy to feel we live in a moral vacuum, garden in a gale. But we must go on gardening.
"Am I alone in finding the economic downturn somehow bracing? Perhaps it will spell the end of the conspicuous and ultimately unfulfilling materialism of the me, me, me society."
She said that "prolonging the wholesomeness of childhood" was often cited by parents as a key reason for choosing a girls' school. She added that parents were "worried – aren't we all? – about a coarsening of society and the toxic cocktail of binge drinking, internet safety and the early sexualisation of girls".
Eleanor Coner, information officer at the Scottish Parent Teacher Council, said: "There is some truth in what she says about society today, but I find it a bit rich to hear a president of a private schools association complaining about a 'me, me, me society'." Ronnie Smith, the general-secretary of the EIS, Scotland's main teaching union, added: "I think she is deliberately exaggerating to try to instil a fear factor in parents of pupils at private schools. She's being far too negative about young people."
