Schools should be banned from expelling or suspending pupils for ‘minor’ offences such as flouting uniform rules, the Children’s Commissioner has claimed.The other kids and their teachers should just put up with it then?
Dr Maggie Atkinson also insisted that no child under seven should ever be excluded.
The sanction should be an ‘absolute last resort’ reserved for ‘exceptional circumstances’ such as assaults, drug-dealing and threats with a weapon, she said.Ummm, not to bring a note of sanity into your little fantasy world here, but all those things are actually crimes that should be dealt with by the police, not by a suspension from school…
Another recommendation in the report is for all children to be handed the right to appeal against a decision to expel them, instead of allowing only parents to challenge it.Great, yeah! Empower them some more!
That’ll not have repercussions further down the line, will it?*
Luckily, the grown ups aren’t having any of this:
Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said: ‘We should be strengthening the hand of teachers – not attempting to undermine their authority.’Well, quite!
Current guidance against excluding pupils for ‘minor infringements’ has been removed from revised advice issued for consultation by the Coalition just before Christmas.I think you’ve met your match though. I can’t see Gove rolling over for this nonsense:
Dr Atkinson urged the Government to reinstate the clause and crack down harder on breaches of the guidance, saying that some heads appeared to be using exclusion ‘on a whim’.
Education Secretary Michael Gove must formally respond to the proposals. A spokesman for his department insisted its policy was the ‘right one’, adding: ‘Unless there is good behaviour in schools, teachers cannot teach and students cannot learn.’Perhaps the Children’s Commissioner might like to reconsider her title – as things stand, it should be ‘The Delinquent Children’s Commissioner’.
She certainly doesn’t seem to be as concerned with any other childrens’ rights, does she?
*H/T: Dizzy Thinks via Twitter
Just listened to some of this mad woman on R4 'YOU AND YOURS' - another post that could be 'disappeared' with a considerable saving and a reduction in stress to 'normal' thinking people. The previous incumbent - Sir Al Aynsley-Green - was equally annoying and bonkers, I suppose DAME Anne Owers will be the next one seeing as she's done prisons, is now IPCC - so much meddling to do.
ReplyDeleteGlad my kids are schooled overseas
ReplyDeleteI spend enough time dealing with "Mess Deck Lawyers" harping on about their "Ooman Rites... You Can't do that, you're racist" chavs in the Classroom as it is. On a good day I can lose a quarter of lesson time to dealing with these Induhviduals (H/t Scott Adams). I would like to spend time actually teaching rather than providing a day care service until they get their first custodial. I'm always amused by the claim "It's YOUR fault I an getting excluded", not a thought that if they behaved they would not be there.
ReplyDeleteTTFN :)
"... another post that could be 'disappeared' with a considerable saving and a reduction in stress to 'normal' thinking people."
ReplyDeleteYup! We have enough fakecharities and mouthy politicians who'll spout the same barmy nonsense for free.
"On a good day I can lose a quarter of lesson time to dealing with these Induhviduals (H/t Scott Adams)."
Heh! I like that one. ;)
The very existence of a "Childrens Commissioner" and other "Tsars" is an anathema at this time of reductions in public spending.
ReplyDeleteThe utterances of this particular individual show her to be a complete numbskull, unfit to have anything whatever to do with the welfare or education of children.