The Stoning of Clarkson

In "our day", strict discipline was allowed and heavy streaming of pupils was used. The discouragement of these practices can only make schools a less conducive learning environment. Would you say our learning outcomes are improving or decreasing compared to international standards?

 

Erm-

 

"Read the article and use the full quote. It clearly says 'repeatedly'. Are you seriously suggesting a teacher should turn a blind eye to this? Presumably the pupil or their parent had brought it to their attention. Now the bit that does rankle me is the recording culture behind it but clearly parents want to see how schools measured on how effectively they deal with bullying and if that's the case how else do you do it? "

You appear to have a fundamental misunderstanding of my position. I am quite happy for the pupil to be heavily reprimanded for their behaviour. What I don't want is for the incident to be "noted" on some list for a bureaucrat to use at a later date. This seems the way of the coward to me.

 

With good reason, from what I've heard!

 

At school I liked chocolate. In adulthood I like alcohol. When it's consumption time for either it's like a shark frenzy.

 

I'm not insisting on anything. But we cannot go through life worrying about such trivial matters. I am half Scottish and I studied in Edinburgh so I have a little experience of being called an "English B***ard" or "sassanach" on numerous occasions and the general environment up there. If a Scots fella gets upset about being called a jock, then so what. It wont harm him.

 

Thanks. I think we've moved on though.

 

Except it isn't in the way you think.

 

Might I suggest some people use the ignore function rather than crap all over the forum?

 

I must have missed the examples of it being used for anything other than OFSTED rating the teachers on how effective they are at dealing with bullying?

 

If you believe British Schools were better in our day you are potty. It's like saying Nottingham Forest of Cloughies time would beat today's Man City just because they won the top European Trophy when City can't.

 

Er...ok 25,000 post meister.

 

"Prejudiced based offences" can be passed on to the next school. This sounds reasonable, until we realise that what constitutes "prejudiced" is undefined and at the discretion of an education official.

I simply don't understand how anyone could not want these kids reprimanded by the teacher, as opposed to being put on a list by a cowardly official. I guess we have a fundamental difference of opinion in how to run an orderly education establishment.

 

well yes ... I must admit I hadn't noticed there was a turn of pages ... stupid board

 

The report you quoted includes higher education which the UK clearly excels at and attracts paying students from all over the world.

If we are talking of the output of schools up to age 16 for the general population I think it is indisputable that the performance of these schools has deteriorated in basic numeracy and literacy.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one. As far as I am concerned the attitudes of people like yourself are why we can't make progress. You just bury your head in the sand.

 

How do you know it is 'undefined'? Surely the whole thing with out of control bureaucracy would be the definition of everything.

You simply don't know how Education works. I blame Mr Chips and the rest of the slackers who taught you back in the day. They didn't impose enough rigour evidently.

 

Presumably they are reprimanded by the teachers. That's sort of the point of recording it - to demonstrate that bullying is being dealt with. All children have files while they're in full time education so it makes sense to then file these reports with the rest of their records.

I don't see how it's undefined. In fact it's pretty clear.

 

A couple of years ago I was given the task of getting a new vehicle for a sporting syndicate I'm a member of. It had to be a 4WD and a Mitsubishi dealer offered special "Browning" versions of a couple of models (L200 and Shogun) which were ideal (and the dealer in question really wanted to make/close the deal). To compare the models I showed our group quite a few youtubes including this one:

[video=youtube;nNv1k5WFlyM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNv1k5WFlyM[/video]

It's amazing how much like a middle class, ex-public schoolboy Jeremy "I'm not an ex-public schoolboy - I'm a man of the people" Clarkson used to sound.

I'm convinced that one of the things Clarkson did when the original run of Top Gear finished in 2002 was read "The Complete Works of PJ O'Rourke" and attempt to copy his entire schtick with one subtle difference: PJ O'Rourke was really, really funny ("Holidays in Hell" and "All the Trouble in the Wolrd" are still great books).

 

How do you know? You went to private school.

 

Rather than everyone making up whether they think it is defined or not, we can get guidance from OFSTED:

"Ofsted's definition is any incident which is perceived to be prejudice-related by the the victim or any other person."

So the teacher must decide if he thinks that the victim (or indeed a bystander) is offended by the term doughnut. Pretty open ended.

And it gets better:

"At the stage of recording, the childs attitudes, motivation and awareness are not the main issue"

So if a kid has no intention to offend someone he still makes the list.

And someone asks the sensible question

"Do we have to record small, insignificant incidents"

"Yes. Every incident, even those that seem small, should be recorded in your incidents log and dealt with.

So no materiality and certainly no room for a teacher making a judgement call.

To be fair it is hard to blame the teachers for over-reacting when seeing this guidance. It is clear my fury should be directed at OFSTED and not the teachers.

https://derbyshire.inthehive.net/le...rbyshire Guidance on Addressing Prejudice.pdf

 

Please close thread; as JC is a waste of space :smiley-sport021:

 

I've kept out of this till now but sorry...this post I will not let slide. A random semi-colon in the middle of a sentence? Good grief.

 

There is no list. That point seems to have totally flown over your head.

The Equality Act defines the characteristics upon which it is possible to discriminate so they're actually incredibly well-defined.

 

The point that seems to have flown above your head is that what the equality act says on discrimination has precisely zero to do with what Ofsted has declared constitutes prejudiced-based bullying. The two are completely different issues.

How anyone can even attempt to defend the gobblygook that Ofsted has put out as guidance is beyond me. Talk about putting teachers in an impossible situation.

 

There is a proforma on this report for the schools to use.

On page 13 there is a section called "Perpetrator Details" where the proforma invites the school to put down name and address of whoever has called an overweight kid a "doughnut".

Of course, I have been told by people in this thread that the names of the kids are never taken. I imagine this must be a typo on the proforma.

http://www.haltonchildrenstrust.co..../Prejudiced-Bullying-Guidance-for-Schools.pdf

 

A comment can't be "prejudice-related" unless it triggers one of the protected characteristics enshrined in law in the Equality Act. So for example if a child says he doesn't like the curtains in the classroom that means he can't be reported for being 'curtain-ist' because no such thing exists.

The first bit you previously quoted from OFSTED is the standard way all public authorities define hate crime. So if someone is the subject of racist language but doesn't find it racist, but Mrs Miggins walking by does and she reports it, it has to be recorded as a racist incident. Your interpretation of "the teacher must decide if he thinks that the victim (or indeed a bystander) is offended by the term doughnut. Pretty open ended" is therefore wrong. The teacher isn't in the position of having to worry if someone was offended, they just have to decide if the term was discriminatory.

You keep fixating on the word doughnut in isolation in a tabloid journalist type way which totally ignores the fact that it wasn't just that term used, it was part of a repetitive bullying behaviour and it clearly isn't acceptable in that context.

The most sensible thing I've read is from the actual people behind the DM article

http://www.manifestoclub.com/files/Racist incidents Briefing Doc.pdf

Not that I agree with all of it. It implies the blame lies with the education authorities when in fact in my opinion it lies with the parents and the public at large. People are offended in a much easier way these days and people defend their children from every tiny knock the world throws at them rather than encouraging them to roll with the blows.

 

There may not be a "list" as such (we dont really know), but there is a permanent record on the "Bullying Incident Log" of a "small, insignificant incident" by a 4 year old that follows them for potentially 14 odd years. Does that not concern you, at least a bit? Even a criminal offence is "spent" after 6 years.

 

"Your interpretation of "the teacher must decide if he thinks that the victim (or indeed a bystander) is offended by the term doughnut. Pretty open ended" is therefore wrong. The teacher isn't in the position of having to worry if someone was offended, they just have to decide if the term was discriminatory."

Doughnut made it onto the list/report or whatever you wish to call it. That undermines your argument.

 

To me it depends entirely on the purpose the information is used for. Nothing in the DM article, the Manifesto Club report summary or this thread has yet indicated anything adverse happening to a child as a result. So it sits on a record. Maybe it's a good thing if Little Jimmy hops from school to school bullying children if he can't get away with the latest incident by claiming it's a one-off and will never happen again, honest sir. The Data Protection Act should prevent education authorities retaining anything which is no longer relevant. So in legal theory at least your 4 year old shouldn't be followed by something for 14 years if it's a one-off small insignificant incident.

 

I think I have to draw my participation in this thread to a close as the topic winds me up too much.

I'll simply say that I think the State keeping records/lists/logs of children calling each other non-racist names in the playground sinister and repellant.

If it's okay with other people then I guess I am in the minority and will have to live with it.

 

No, there is no 'list'.

It's odd that you are not concerned about the massive infringement into civil liberties perpetrated by ours and the USA's security forces and yet efforts to manage pupil behaviour, with no evidence of negative outcome for pupils meet with such scepticism.

I do agree that this recording should avoid the trivial. My guess is in practice it does and I don't imagine the guidance we have seen is the full picture. In principle recording incidents of bullying behaviour is really just something we would expect to be done. The damage remains with the children who suffer bullying rather than the bullys.