Camden News: Cerrie Burnell | Do and Discover and Bedtime Hour | CBeebies | Disability | Scare

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Camden News - by DAN CARRIER
Published: 26 February 2009

TV presenter Cerrie Burnell was a teaching assistant at Jack Taylor School

Carry on! Backing for disabled presenter

A DISABLED children’s television presenter whose appearance on screens sparked criticism from parents is the victim of a “tragic and narrow-minded” attack, according to friends and former colleagues.
Cerrie Burnell, who was born with one hand, worked as a teaching assistant at Jack Taylor School in Swiss Cottage for two years before leaving to pursue her entertainment career last summer.
Since Ms Burnell, 29, took over the Do and Discover and Bedtime Hour programmes on the BBC’s CBeebies channel last month, dozens of parents have complained to the broadcaster, saying that her disability was scaring their children or forcing difficult conversations.
One father said he would stop his daughter watching the channel for fear it would “give her nightmares”. Others suggested she was only chosen to meet “politically
correct” employment quotas.
Many more, however, have rallied in support of Ms Burnell.
Stephen Smith, headteacher at Jack Taylor, a school for children with severe learning difficulties in Ainsworth Way, said: “The biggest thing disabled people have to cope with is other people’s attitudes. Her disability was never an issue at the school. You forgot she had it. We see her as an ambassador for our kind of work and a positive role model.”
Jessica Asato, the school’s chairwoman of governors, said it was “incredibly disappointing and immature” that some people couldn’t “get to grips with a person who is disabled on our TV screens”.
Ms Burnell, who has a four-month-old daughter, issued a statement saying: “It can only be a good thing that parents are using me as a chance to talk disability with their children.”

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