In common with many other schools, locally, nationally and globally, we are experiencing children quoting content from the social media phenomenon Italian Brainrot. You may well have heard children shouting what appears to be gibberish, maybe in an exaggerated Italian accent.
Whilst the phrases and imagery associated with this now appear to simply be nonsensical, the background is somewhat darker, with disturbing racist and misogynistic roots – much of it extreme.
From that, some content creators have manipulated the original to make it more appealing to children, but there are concerns that the racism and misogyny are still there in a coded way.
The children seem to be accessing an AI generated more sanitised version, but the roots remain and some of the content is still dependent on racist tropes.
It’s complicated and symptomatic of the digital world children now inhabit. There is a good article here for parents and carers, which explains much more knowledgeably fully than we ever could:
https://www.safeonsocial.com/post/italian-brainrot-what-parents-really-need-to-know
There is a further exploration of the original meaning of the songs and phrases here. As a warning, it contains profanity, blasphemy and extreme racism: https://strommeninc.com/parents-shocked-by-italian-brainrot-translations-heres-what-those-viral-chants-really-mean/
Views on the latest iteration are mixed – some see it as harmful and covertly racist, others as an irritation to be endured. The Guardian here expands further: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jun/25/from-chimpanzini-bananini-to-ballerina-cappuccina-how-gen-alpha-went-wild-for-italian-brain-rot-animals
We cannot ban children from using nonsense language and songs based on their origins rather than current content. They do not appear to be targetting the phrases at a particular group, but are using them randomly and haphazardly. We would, however, like everyone to be sensitive to this. If we feel that the words and songs are being targetted to cause racist or religious offence, we will treat it as a discrimination incident. If we find that the words and songs are being directed, in innocence, at someone who has asked for that not to happen, we will manage it as a breach of our behaviour rules and values.
We would rather our children were engagng with something more useful online and there are plenty of other alternatives for simple fun, that do not have the highly dubious background. Nonetheless, we can’t fight or keep out a global phenomenon like this, only manage it as best we can.
All of this will be explained to the children in an age-appropriate way in Assembly on Monday.