A HEADTEACHER has reassured children they can still send each other cards after pupils started a petition to reinstate a Christmas post box.

Parents of pupils at Edward Feild Primary School, Kidlington, were told there would be no internal Christmas postbox due to concerns about waste produced.

A notice on the school’s website read: “It has been decided there will be no Christmas Card Post Box this year for the children.

“Edward Feild is a Silver Eco school and the staff and many of the parents feel that there is a tremendous amount of waste involved in this activity.”

Pupil Cloe Woodward and two friends started a petition demanding the postbox returned to the school, which they say was signed by 183 of the school’s 300 pupils.

Cloe, 11, said: “We want to keep the Christmas postbox because we have had it for ages.”

After the row broke out, headteacher Cathryn Wilkes said the announcement should have said the postbox would stay, but operate differently.

She said there would still be a Christmas postbox, but each child was being asked to write a single card for their entire class.

Mrs Wilkes said: “We have been talking about reducing the amount of paper going through the school. We know a lot of children wanted to send individual cards and we were going to suggest they did that in the playground before or after school, while we would use the box to deliver class cards.”

Mrs Wilkes said the school’s eco-credentials were not the only reason for the decision.

She said: “Some parents have been talking about the cost of buying Christmas cards, because some of them are being asked to buy quite a large number.

“Staff also voiced concerns that when the postbox was delivered there were children crying because some were not getting very many cards while others got lots.”

As well as the pupils’ petition, a Facebook group was set up called Bring Back the Edward Feild Christmas Post Box, attracting 43 members.

Sue Barnes, whose two nephews, Brian, four, and Alan, three, attend the school, said she was disappointed by the changes to the postbox.

She said: “I am not happy about it. Kids like handing out Christmas cards to their friends.

“They maybe want to give cards to four or five people they are close to, rather than the whole class.”

One mum, who did not want to be named, said: “The kids love posting their cards and sharing it with their friends.

“The cards will be recycled anyway or used by the children to make different things so I don’t see that it’s a big waste.”

fbardsley@oxfordmail.co.uk