Thursday 4 March 2010

Sticking To The Easy Targets...

Heads will be forced to list children as young as five on school 'hate registers' over everyday playground insults.

Even minor incidents must be recorded as examples of serious bullying and details kept on a database until the pupil leaves secondary school.
Oh, wow. Just wow!

I mean, I thought Ed Balls couldn't possibly do anything worse for schools than he'd already done so far, and then he comes up with this!
Teachers are to be told that even if a primary school child uses homophobic or racist words without knowing their meaning, simply teaching them such words are hurtful and inappropriate is not enough.

Instead the incident has to be recorded and his or her behaviour monitored for future signs of 'hate' bullying.
You really think they'd want to avoid using the word 'bullying' or see it in any media reports after the last few weeks, wouldn't you? So why announce this now?

Ah. Right. They didn't:
The scale of the effort to stop children using homophobic or racist language was revealed after the parents of a ten-year-old primary school pupil in Somerset, Peter Drury, were told that his name would be put on a register and his behaviour monitored while he remained at school.

The boy was reported after he called a friend 'gay boy'. His parents fear the record of homophobic bullying will count against him throughout his school career and even into adulthood.
Balls is determined not to carry the can for this one, sending his Mini-Me out to take the flack instead:
Schools Minister Vernon Coaker said: 'The majority of schools already record incidents of bullying.

'However, we want to make sure that all schools have measures in place to prevent and tackle bullying and show they are taking it seriously.'
But it's OK, kids, don't worry. Once you have grown up - especially if you are the right identity group - you can say what you like without fear of censure.

The government is confident in its ability to tackle five year old. Adults, not so much...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Zob: Sir Sir, Mycock called me a blackguard.

Head: Thank you Zob. Mycock goes in the hate register as racist hatemonger.

Mycock: But Sir, Zob called me a bully.

Head: Well Zob, you go in the register under the category Hates Gordon Brown.

banned said...

This has floated before, Schools that don't have ethnic minority issues are obliged to big up any trivial instances that they come across for fear of being branded "in denial".

As for gay taunting, most youngsters get over that in about 15 seconds, this nonsense approach will have them pondering for years.

English Viking said...

Ed Balls is a gayboy, he's married to a cross dresser. You can't tell me she's all woman, I'n not having it.

JuliaM said...

"Head: Well Zob, you go in the register under the category Hates Gordon Brown."

Heh!

"...most youngsters get over that in about 15 seconds, this nonsense approach will have them pondering for years."

Indeed. It isn't even used to refer to someone who's really gay, after all.

"You can't tell me she's all woman, I'n not having it."

if Ed's lucky, neither is he!