My niece has been on and off school for the last year. She is clearly troubled by some aspect of school in general, but she won't open up to anyone. Whenever she gets near school, she becomes physically sick and panicky.
Everyone has tried their best to help her, but she won't tell anyone what is the root of the problem.
In this scenario should the parents still be help responsible, considering they are at breaking strain? Threats of legal moves are not going to solve this case, so should the parents be pursued even though it's not of their doing and they have shown they have tried their utmost to persuade her to go to school?
Uh, correlation is not causation?
I have to say in your original case, the wrong person was in the dock. Once children get to about 14, they are pretty independant minded, and from about 14 to 18 one would say that staying on the right side of the tracks is more luck than good parenting.
Whilst I do believe in special handling as far as criminal offences go, I also believe that some form of forced boarding schools for truants would be appropriate. Unless it is clearly shown the parent is making no attempt to get their children to school, I really fail to see how punishing a parent for an out of control child works.
Presumably, by the time it gets to court, there is some analysis of why the child involved fails to attend school. I personally am wondering also whether letting people out into the workforce at 14 was such a bad thing after all. You mentioned apprenticeships in your previous blog, and I think it is disappointing that this exit from the educational system is no longer available at such an age.
The current system seems to be targeted at getting every child and his dog with degree level education, and quite honestly I don't think the world works properly this way. We should perhaps recognise that some children will "fail" in traditional academic life and have a planned exit route for their salvation (and ours).
Children who don't go to school very much get very poor marks in exams, eh? What revelation will Bystander share with us next - bears use wooded areas as lavatories, football teams which score more goals than they concede win more points than those who concede more than they score?
Which way does the causation go, again?
The consequences of 'Bunking off' are so extreme (i.e. the child ends up having no life) that maybe the parents should be sent down for a very short stint. If I knew that I would face severe consequences if my child bunked off then I would jump on it at the first sign of it happening.
Vic, your neice's parents are presumably a caring lot who have involved the school in the problems that they have. Not knowing the details, it sounds like a emotional/mental health issue which is quite common & which the school should (but rarely does) have strategies to deal with.
This is entirely different to the type of parent that really doesn't give a shit whether little Dwayne or Kylie goes to school or not. After all, a lack of a proper education didn't do them no 'arm, did it? They still get their social.
The biggest problem with troublesome kids is the schools deny they have a problem. Every salaried employee is afraid to admit the truth lest it damage their careers.
I always hate these cases - especially when the local authority has charged the parents at the imprisonable level. Vic I empathise with your niece's situation - however having had the same scenario and finally having to change schools, I kept the previous school informed the entire time so channels of information were kept open and I was never in danger of prosecution. So often parents and the school attendance officer have failed in their communications with each other, allowing personal feelings to come into the situation and not keeping it at a professional level, which results in these heavy handed tactics from the education authorities.
Often there is no alternative that can be offered to the student that refuses to attend. Without fail, the cases in front of my bench were due to bullying and the inability of the school to combat this.
Just punishing the parent has never seemed to me to be the effective way of treating the problem - the problem will not go away by imprisoning the parent and it gives the message that the school is not culpable either, which to my mind they are if they cannot protect their students from bullying or initiate a programme of reintergration. So often the child involved will say they just want to change schools - yet the local education authority for one reason or another do not effect that and instead expect us to imprison the parent.
anonimouse @ 10.29.07 - 11:21 pm
recommends forced boarding schools for truants.
Yes, let's have them for young offenders as well...
... Borstal...
Or didn't someone already try that?
I find myself agreeing with those who are suggesting that the causal link is a lazy and potentially inaccurate one ; only more data would convince me otherwise.
I find myself turning it round the other way...'Regular school attenders are one-third more likely to commit crime or become the victims of crime... ...Regular school attenders have more than a ten per cent chance of achieving five good (grades A-C) GCSEs'
Not too sure what that tells me, other than it shows - yet again - that Groucho Marx was right : "statistics are like a bikini; what they reveal is interesting but what they conceal is vital".
"and it gives the message that the school is not culpable either"
Is it not possible for the bench to insist that a School Head/LEA rep attend court and explain their failure to deal properly with cases of bullying in cases like this? I suspect that being called to account before the beak would provide an incentive to take action.
Vic - don't torture the poor kid, withdraw the niece from her school. It is *entirely legal* to not go to school, so long as she gains an education (reads books will do) at home, and she can pick up GCSEs through evening classes or just sit them completely independently (the exam boards actively provide for this, for some subjects at least).
I did this and ended up pretty successful. It's not a route to educational failure if the kid's problem is with the school environment rather than with paying attention to the lessons. Completely different from any kid Bystander will ever see.
Chavlings, on the other hand, will probably not acquire an education even if they DO go to school, so why force them to attend and ruin it for the kids who actually want to learn?
Having once been one of these children in question, I would not wish the same things to happen to my children.
I didn't go to school, my mother didn't make me. My education was gained later in life until I attained my degree at the age of 27. It was a lot harder than if I'd just been educated in the first place. Several of my old school pals are either dead through drug abuse/ in prison/ or live on the social.
I think that prosecuting parents that couldn't care less is a good thing.
There seem to be two sets of parents here; parents who have religiously taken their children to school only to have the scrote bunk off, and parents who haven't made the attempt. Whilst the second category deserve punishment, those in the first don't. I am also concerned that Local Authorities are better equipped to lay off blame onto the parent when it may well be their fault.
Obviously, not making parents responsible in some way has not worked, so I think that punishing those who screw up their child's education which will end up costing all of us in the future, has to be tried.
It is entirely different from parents who have a problem with their child, and try and work with the school or the education authorities (whatever they are).
I would have thought that a magistrate can appreciate the difference.
I however do not think that kids staying on the right side of the fence between 14 and 18 is more by luck than parenting.
Biker Mag - Your logic is wonky. One third more likely than whom?
Good causality points, folks. A correlation does not necessarily imply causality in *either* direction; it can also imply a common cause.
A good example (from the Economist) was a false correlation between racial group and academic performance. Actually, both factors correlated to parental income. When controlled for parental income, the 'underperforming' ethnic group was actually doing better.
In this case, bullying perhaps correlates to non-attendance and to likelihood of being a victim of crime. Not the whole story, but perhaps an important part.
As Bystander says, it makes you think.
I wasn't being entirely serious!
Freakonomics is a fabulous book which rather takes traditional notions of causality apart (even if its own theories are at times somewhat suspect).
Recommended for people who want to be more aware of what can hide, or be hidden, behind statistics.
If it's a case of bullying, then surely a simple change of school could help the child?
And if it IS a case of bullying,
why aren't the school staff doing anything about it?
Dr. Stuart Savory
PS: Just finished reading Frank Chalk's book "It's your time you're wasting" which is a real eyeopener about the UK education system these days (or should that say Daze?).
Erratic or non-school attenders are .... more likely to commit crime or become the victims of crime. Erratic or non-school attenders have less than a ten per cent chance of achieving five good (grades A-C) GCSEs
Makes you think, doesn't it?
A recent report from the director of ursine studies revealled that bears are quite likely to defacate in areas of medium to heavy forestation.
Makes you think, doesn't it?
pcr,
Since it obviously doesn't make you think, you are excused thinking, and may stick with tired old clichés.
Oh thank god!
I find in my job if you think too much you just end up getting depressed with the utter futility of it all.
Fortunatly at my place people who think too much are being replaced by people who just have to walk round in shiny yellow coats "reassuring the public".
Whoops!
I concurr with the comments about cause and effect(it's jolly difficult to pass an exam one doesn't turn up to sit!)
Presumably the person who penned the shockingly bad English in the quottation did attend school. Didn't do much good, did it?
I might trust the figures if they had said "Children who skip school or attend erratically..."
Of course the significant increase in independent education is entirely unrelated.
"Erratic or non-school attenders are two-thirds more likely to commit crime"
I guess that explains why Alan Sugar sold those dodgy, naff Amstrads.
"Erratic or non-school attenders have less than a ten per cent chance of achieving five good (grades A-C) GCSEs"
I guess that's why Alan Sugar became a multi millionaire.
Are GCSEs even useful in the job market, beyond toiletpaper level?
The statistics reveal only the agenda of those quoting them: I would be interested in reading the rest of the memo, but it does seem that the idea is "lump all truants into one class".
Does that class include the home-schooled? I suspect not. They just fall off the radar as far as truancy stats go. But for any decent parent where the alternative is jailtime, and where the kid won't accept relocation (or the LEA won't provide an alternative school), that's what the kid will get.
"Persistent non-home-schooled truants" is an interesting but not homogenous group. The yuppies that keep taking their darling off on skiing trips, and the chavs who simply don't care whether their Shaniqua attends, and the working single mum who simply has no reasonable tools to enforce attendance on an unwilling child... Splitting it into subgroups depending on how much parental responsibility has been used sounds sensible.
I would say that parental responsibility is very important - but it's hard to be responsible but not have the tools to fix it. If a parent can't move a pupil to a new school, can't provide care at home, and the best the school can offer is to move the clearly bright (and hence, bullied) kid in with the "special needs kids", then the head, and possibly the LEA decision-makers, need to be called before the bench and asked why they don't have better procedures for dealing with this not-uncommon occurrence.
Me? I was home-schooled until 11. Din' do me no 'arm. Despite never having studied it, I was surprised to find that I spoke better French than the ones in class. At eleven they were only just being taught basic algebra. They had no idea how to cook, they could barely write a coherent sentence let alone a proper narrative, they
I heartily recommend home-schooling for kids: school serves a useful purpose to teach them socialising, but otherwise is just there to prepare people for the bottom rung in the job market.
N o Man said:
"Presumably the person who penned the shockingly bad English in the quottation (sic) did attend school."
Dewi Morgan said:
"They had no idea how to cook, they could barely write a coherent sentence let alone a proper narrative, they" (end para)
If you're going to criticise others for poor spelling, punctuation and grammar, check VERY carefully before you publish otherwise you get unintentionally hilarious posts like the ones above.
The first few cases of non-attendance I heard got me quite worked up - what could be done to help, why punish the parent etc. Now I feel the education welfare officers have tried to make progress with the parties and this is a last resort: a common piece of evidence is that the parents have not attended any meetings or notified the EWO of problems after contact - so I'm quite content to impose the penalty for what is in law an offence with very narrow defense. 1st time Cond. discharge, next fine etc.
I would like to see the little sods in court with the parent too.
Can we move away from the old name of LEA - we no longer have these in England but Local Authorities and now the newly emerged Childrens Services driven by Every Child Matters.
We need as a society of what does this process of ECM and then ask Does Every Child Matter? and the further question will every child still matter in 10 years time.
Looking at this with a East of England County view, in that changes have been radical and practices are still catching up with issues, but the closeness of Locaility and Area teams to indivduals and issues give me some hope that we are moving fast away from a central service held in a central shire town as in the LEA, to services that are much closer to people and people that need them. This will take time to fully embed but has huge potential to have impact.
The full impact of ECM has yet to be worked out and as a society we still need to come back to the issue of how much does every child matter?
If we answered these questions and supported young people with their needs, then I might see less appearing in front of me in a few years time. But politically we never have this debate when it comes to general elections.
It might be an idea to do away with teachers and schools and hand education over to the army. They have been teaching for decades and are quite good at getting information into heads.
Cramer,
I realise that failing public services across the board are routinely baled out by the military, think dealing with: floods that the Environment Agency failed to have the right equipment in the right place for, foot and mouth that DEFRA failed to prevent the spread of, fire cover when those paid to do that are on strike etc etc.
Quite why the military are used as all-purpose panaceas for public sector failure is unclear, other than they always get what they are asked to do done. The average squaddie has no more training in containing the spread of agricultural diseases than the average social worker, but social services are never asked to deal with such emergencies (which is obviously for the best).
However, I fear these days the military don't have the resources to take on the entire education system as well as fulfilling their other commitments, though obviously it would be ideal if they could.
"...Since it obviously doesn't make you think, you are excused thinking, and may stick with tired old clichés.
Bystander "
I, too, have given up thinking (or at least talking) about quite a few things - I found that several of my thoughts had become illegal.
I sometimes wonder what would happen if I was ever co-opted into Government by being asked to join a focus group....
My Dear Astro Turf Lawnmower
Touche. I can spell: I never claimed that I could type!
The reason the military are called on to haul chestnuts out of the fire is because they are the only people who can't say "no" to the governent. (Oh yes and the overtime cost is actually zero)
The parents who do not care if their offspring are at school resumably don't care what they are doing, nor to whom they are doing it. I suggest that that may be the root of the problem.
East of England Winger: “Can we move away from the old name of LEA”
Not while we have to suffer the horrors of phraseology like “newly emerged Childrens Services” or “fully embed”, let alone sanctimonious, pukeworthy titles such as Every Child Matters. Does “huge potential to have impact” actually mean anything? What matters, surely, is whether it does any good, not merely whether it has impact. Given this government's track record, it could be entirely negative.
Your preference for using expressions preferred by feeble-minded policy makers ensures that no meaning can be inferred at all. This is of course, designed to avoid any possibility of clearly understanding what the policy is about, with an eye to avoiding accusations of failure.
The army is very good at controlling and directing the violence of those they recruit, but it is noticable that a lot of people encounter problems when they join the chaos that is civilian life after the regulated life of the army.
I seem to recall we had "boot camps" for offenders during the days of the Conservatives, and apocryphal stories relate that some young offenders used the experience as an excuse to get fit and trained for continuing their life of crime.
When I said boarding schools for truants, some people seemed to think I was advocating a harsh environment internally. I was advocating a normal school environment, and as far as possible, living environment, for a period of up to one year. Return to normal schooling would be based on a demonstrated willingness to learn; this is not (necessarily) the same as success in learning.
_______________
OK. now the De Menezes trial has returned its Guilty verdict, are we going to discuss this? I notice that the jury has added a "No personal responsibility" rider to its verdict.
Incidentally, why is this not a form of assault?
But what do you do if your child has ADHD? Surely there is nothing you can do then. And pretty much ALL naughty children have ADHD, it’s not their fault, or down to bad parenting.
(Note: Sarcasm)
To turn this on it's head and to show it's possible to get on without masses of certificates, my niece (now 15) has been accepted as an apprentice in a hairdressing salon. This is something she has always wanted to do and has plans to start her own hairdressing service when she is qualified. She achieved this by showing determination, willingness to learn and a positive attitude.
Schools are not the only avenue to achievement.
What's happened to Rogerborg?
Surely he's not gone off in a huff - that's not his style.
Perhaps he's gone to open a prison in the far East.
"..What's happened to Rogerborg?
Surely he's not gone off in a huff.."
If he has, he'll probably be back in a minute and a huff...
I'll get my coat, and apologise to Groucho on the way out...
"Erratic or non-school attenders have less than a ten per cent chance of achieving five good (grades A-C) GCSEs"
Isn't that the same as saying "Almost 10% of Erratic or non-school attenders still achieve five good (grades A-C) GCSEs"
Sounds like quite a high percentage to me. And they say that exams aren't getting any easier. 
Bollocks though really. All that means is the ones who are bunking off get mixed up in crime, and the ones who are going to school get mixed up in exactly the same behaviour, but on the school grounds where they either get away with it or it's dealt with in-house. Many of the things I saw frequently in school would have been treated as crimes if they happened anywhere else, particularly now with the police being run as an arbitrary-target-chasing operation instead of a, er... police force.
I wish I'd bunked off school more often. I might have learned something.
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