Anti-Bullying
Week
The
campaign to counter bullying is still fairly new, with the
Anti-Bullying Alliance set up in 2003 and based at the National
Children’s Bureau, but already it is having a major
impact. Anti-Bullying Week this year got a lot of coverage
in the media, and it has given Professor Al Aynsley-Green,
the new Children’s Commissioner for England, a good
platform for his first major campaign. “There is an
'epidemic' of bullying in schools with 'a lot of denial'
about its existence, severity and effect”, he said.
He told The Observer, “I have had hundreds of conversations
with children and I can tell you that the one thing every
child I have met has been affected by, with virtually no
exceptions, is bullying”. He added that children are
brought up in a society where violence is the norm and included
in this violence on television, in the workplace and in
the home.
The media have been full of ghastly stories of children
bullying each other. We can only hope that the attention
being paid to this form of violence will be yet another
stage in the process of making our society more considerate
and less violent. If you want to know more, look at http://www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.
Poacher
and Gamekeeper
It
is always interesting to see how people who have been critics
of the Government and advocates of higher standards of service
behave when they become Ministers. Fiona McTaggart made
a good go of it when she spoke at the Howard League AGM
this month.
Challenged to speak about children in the prison system,
she said, “How much better it would be if children
were dealt with outside the prison system”, identifying
the need to give diversion a high priority. She then went
on to point out that it was only 3-4% of child offenders
who were actually placed in custody, and argued that local
authority units should be used for them where possible.
Where children had to be held in secure conditions, it
needed to be “a positive experience”, she said,
and she reported that spending on education in Youth Offender
Institutions had trebled in three years, and there was a
growing emphasis on training for work.
All
Change at NCMA
We announced the impending departure of Gill Haynes as
Chief Executive of the National Child Minding Association
a couple of months ago. Just before the NCMA held its annual
conference in Torquay, her successor was named as Liz Bayram,
at present the Head of Policy at NCMA. She has a big job
ahead of her, partly because filling Gill’s shoes
will be difficult as her leadership has been outstanding,
and partly because the NCMA’s prominence and size
means that she will have a key political role in the childcare
world as well as needing to keep her ear to the ground to
reflect the members’ views. The change-over takes
place towards the end of December.
The Conference marked the retirement of Sue Johnson as
Acting Chair. She has done sterling work for the NCMA in
different capacities over many years. Sue was replaced at
the AGM by Susanna Dawson, who has enormous energy and enthusiasm.
She will need it over the next few years, to cope with the
travelling between Hexham and Bromley, where the NCMA is
based.
The third key change is that the NCMA has moved offices
too, purchasing its own building and getting more space
in the process. They are still in Bromley, not too far from
their former headquarters, at :
Royal Court, 81 Tweedy Road, Bromley, Kent BR1 1TW.
Their Central Office switchboard number is 0845 880 0044.
The Conference was again well attended, with over 700 people
present, a full programme and a gallery full of exhibitors.
Beverley Hughes, as Minister, pressed all the right buttons
in a sound speech. She was followed by Penny Tassoni, a
writer and psychologist who spoke wittily yet very perceptively
about children and language. The NCMA’s theme for
the year was, after all, Making Chatter Matter,
and plenty of that went on at the conference.
Another
Good Year
The
National Children’s Bureau held its AGM towards the
end of November. AGMs are usually tedious events, but the
NCB always manages to include some very impressive reports
of its activities and uses the opportunity to consult members
(genuinely) about current issues and the line it should
be taking.
If you want to know what they are getting up to, have a
look at their websites (e.g. www.ncb.org.uk and www.cpinfo.org.uk
). The sheer amount of information they provide is incredible.
There is a danger that people may find it daunting and not
take advantage of it, but it is well worth looking through,
to keep up to date, to learn of new Government initiatives,
or to network about your specialism.
Bad
News and Good News
First the Bad News. The number of young people - technically
children in the eyes of the law - has gone up to 2,947,
despite the views of just about everyone quotable that prison
is the wrong place for them. Not far to go to 3,000.
Then the Good News. The Youth Justice Board is planning
to use "less secure" residential homes for some
of these young people, cutting the number in custody by
10%. That should just about bring the numbers down to where
they were before the recent hike.
The problem for the Home Office is that to devise new schemes
like this, it has to bring in legislation, find money and
build residential provision, which all takes time. Meanwhile
the judges and magistrates only need to send another bunch
of young people down in order to totally jigger up the Home
Office's plans.
More
Good News
Nick Johnson has been appointed as Chief Executive of the
Social Care Association. He has been the Deputy Chief Executive
for a number of years, waiting in the wings for Dick Clough's
retirement. Dick stood down in the Spring this year and
Nick has been Acting Chief Executive since then, while the
SCA reviewed its structure. We look forward to seeing what
line the new Chief Executive will take.
Involving
Parents
A Bill has been announced in Scotland to involve parents
fully in all stages in the appointment of head teachers.
Consultation is now taking place about the proposals, contained
in the Scottish Schools (Parental Involvement) Bill.
The procedures to appoint teachers are going to become
“more rigorous”. Education Minister Peter Peacock
said, “Parents’ views are vital and I want to
strengthen their role in the recruitment process by giving
them the opportunity to get involved at all stages of the
selection process. This means they will be able to make
a more meaningful contribution to these vital appointments.”
We applaud the involvement of parents in the process as
key stake-holders, but is it really necessary to make a
law containing rigorous requirements for it to happen? There
seem to be laws about everything now. Why can’t a
consensus on good practice be formed by dialogue, or at
most a letter sent out by the Minister? It should not be
necessary to hit people over the head with a hammer every
time you want to get them to do something. Law-making should
be kept to a minimum. Otherwise it will be devalued by being
equated with regulations and procedures.
If you want to have your say, look at the Internet: www.scotland.gov.uk.
Curriculum
for the Tot in the Cot
The Government’s proposals for extending the National
Curriculum to include little children has caused a stir.
In one sense, all they are doing is to rationalise the advice
already being given, and putting it together into one comprehensive
format. Who can complain about that?
Well,
Peter Moss, a Professor at the Institute of Education in
London, can for a start. He has warned that a national curriculum
for babies and toddlers risks creating an 'industrial model'
of early years education in which workers will have to follow
a manual to ensure children conform. Actually, the guidelines
are pretty broad, based on common sense and good professional
practice, and it’s not likely that we will see a French-style
application with every child in every nursery being taught
the same social skill at the same time on the same day throughout
the country.
Nonetheless, as with the Scottish Bill above, does all
this need to be in legislation? If it is simply issued as
guidance, a lot of the criticism might be deflected. Some
people see the idea of statutory requirements being placed
on the way we bring up little children as nonsense, but,
even among those who welcome the idea of guidance, some
are becoming increasingly uneasy at the imposition by central
Government of their ideas on everybody else. Do we really
need uniformity?
Jargon
The
word jargon started life as a French description
of harsh bird sounds, becoming twittering or nonsense, then
evolving to be used to describe barbarous language, before
being attached to academia and other specialist areas with
their own in-group languages.
Nowadays, jargon is a pejorative term, (a Bad Thing in
1066 and All That language) and everyone is against
it, while continuing to use it. When the National Children’s
Bureau took four Young NCB members onto its Board, in-group
jargon was one of the things they criticised. The NCB responded
by preparing simplified one-page summaries of all reports
that went to the Board, and these were appreciated by the
adult members as well as the young people.
The fact is that jargon will carry on being used, partly
because we have to use short-hand terms for the sake of
efficiency. (What do people in Llanfair P.G. call their
village?) The problem is that outsiders may not understand
in-group language. Indeed, in-group language may be used
to positively exclude outsiders, for example in teenagers’
use of text messaging so that adults do not understand what
they are communicating.
Of course, even when a group is made up of insiders, there
is still the problem of confusion about acronyms. Is someone
claiming to be an MP a Member of Parliament or a Military
Policeman? A recent meeting in a Government Department continued
for half an hour before it was realised that half the participants
thought that the initials they were discussing meant one
thing, while the other half thought the subject of discussion
was something entirely different. This sort of ambiguity
presumably accounts for all the ex-miners, looking rather
lost, to be found wandering around the National Children’s
Bureau.
Paedophile
Priests
We
have mentioned the history of the abuse of children and
young people at the hands of Roman Catholic priests before
in relation to cases in Canada, the United States and the
Republic of Ireland. Now it’s the turn of Brazil,
with 10% of the priests reportedly the subject of accusations
by people who were boys and girls when they were abused,
and England, where monks at Ampleforth Abbey abused boys
attending the public school. One of the worrying features
of the latter case is that even someone as saintly and popular
as Cardinal Basil Hume appears to have considered dealing
with the abuse as an internal matter which need not be of
concern to the Police when he was Headmaster.
We were brought up to be aware of stranger danger –
the shady bloke in the dirty mac – but not to expect
abuse by the people who are meant to give moral guidance,
who advocate that God is love and who take on the priestly
role of His representatives. It is hard to comprehend. Certainly
it is a sign of man’s fallibility and need for redemption.
Maybe it also indicates the traditional power of the Church
in these countries, and the often-quoted danger that power
corrupts. Certainly, in one country after another, the Roman
Catholic hierarchy has failed to take decisive action to
protect children, but has managed the situation in ways
which are intended to cause least trouble to the Church.
But truth will out.
One of the Pope’s titles is Servus Servorum
– Servant of the Servants. Maybe it is time for the
Church to look again at adopting a humbler stance and renewing
its vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. If it is to
regain credibility, it will need to be true to its basic
values and beliefs.
Overruled
It has been reported that head teachers are overwhelmed
by the amount of bureaucratic requirements placed upon them,
and they have complained.
It reminds us of a time when staff in one residential school
were required to create activities called “testing
situations” which would enable children to be assessed
– games, classroom lessons, practical activities –
anything which would bring out their skills, social abilities,
attitudes and so on.
One of the older teachers devised a game (which he called
football) in which he told the boys that there were no rules
except for scoring by kicking the ball into the opponents’
net. After a few minutes of play it would become somewhat
riotous and so he would blow the whistle, announce that
a foul had been committed because the ball had gone over
head height, award a free kick, and the game would carry
on. After a few more minutes, the whistle went again, and
offside was introduced. A couple of minutes later, another
whistle and another rule was added. And so on.
At first, the additional rules were comprehensible and
made the game more orderly, but after a while the imposition
of extra rules left the boys bewildered. They couldn’t
remember all the rules for a start, they didn’t know
what the next one would be, and the game was impeded by
frequent whistle-blowing. Depending on the individuals,
they became aggressive, complained about lack of fairness,
opted out, or tried to anticipate the next rule. By the
end of the game, everyone was in a bad mood, except for
the teacher. He quite enjoyed that activity.
Perhaps the heads feel they’re in a testing situation.
Did
You See .....?
..... the full-page Guardian article about Phoenix
Survivors (23 November 2005, p.3)? It was founded by Shy
Keenan who, as a little girl, was sexually abused and her
images have been scattered across the internet ever since.
Phoenix Survivors is pledged to track down and prosecute
abusers. They also support victims of abuse and campaign
to get the internet industry to work with police to eradicate
child porn from the web.
..... that Professor Ted Wragg had died? He was a highly
energetic and influential educationist, who did not fail
to speak his mind if he felt that the Government or others
in authority were falling short. He was a sound researcher,
a clear thinker, an incisive arguer and an entertaining
speaker. He will be much missed.
..... the TV programme on young drinkers? The overall picture
was depressingly sad as one young person after another said
that getting drunk was the only thing that made them happy,
or stopped them being bored, or helped them get on with
their friends. It was a very bleak and depressing picture,
and a strong argument for teetotalism. The one bright episode
was when a girl agreed to go on an American boot camp, which
sorted her out, helped her come to her senses and provided
the opportunity for her to get on with her mother again.
..... the article in the Sunday Mirror about the
shop owner who used a system called Mosquito to drive away
young people loitering in his doorway? Apparently, it emits
a high-pitched noise which is irritating to young people
but not to oldies, whose hearing has lost its sensitivity
to top notes. But what will he do if some aged dosser decides
to sleep in his porch? And what if teenagers have been deafened
by their walkmans and ipods?
From
an HR Report
The residential and field social workers had duel roles....
Touché!
