A primary school teacher has been fired for telling her rowdy youngsters that Santa Claus does not exist.

According to a recent story in the Daily Mail, the children were so traumatised by this piece of demythologisation that they burst into tears and ran home and told their parents.  Mums and dads then wrote to the school complaining about the incident and were reassured that the supply teacher involved had been disciplined and would not be working for the school again.

One father, who described the  incident as ‘shocking’ and believed the teacher had done it ‘with malicious intent’ but came up with a cunning plan to placate his distraught son:-

‘We told him that she did not believe in Father Christmas because of her religion and he’s fine now.’

That’s right, blame it on religion.  At least she didn’t say she preferred to believe in Jesus rather than Santa.  That would have been really serious.