Don't Care Didn't Care

I'm having a bit of a downer about this area at the moment, well not so much the area but certain people that live within it.

I've lived in a fair few places in my time and I'm of the opinion that selfish people come from all walks of life. In fact I might even go as far to say that in more "affluent" areas there's a higher chance of someone being intolerably selfish.

However what I think is part of the problem around here is the sheer number of households. So although the chance of any one of those being selfish muppets is probably no different the numbers of them pretty much guarantee a healthy dose of muppets somewhere close to you.

Anyway.

I was reminded of a story that I heard a good few months ago that shows the sort of problems this area is facing, and how they're not being tackled.

I know a teacher, a child was moved into their class from another school. They hadn't been expelled, "permanently excluded" in today's terms, rather it was a "managed move". That's what happens when a child is so bad that one school wants rid of them but both the Council and the School are under pressure of keeping their number of "permanent exclusions" low, so they come up with a new term for the same thing and the child goes to another school.

So into this new school they go, the child has such behaviour issues that there's a full time assistant that works 1 on 1 with the child throughout the normal classes.

The child has a horrific home life, it's no wonder they've got issues.

However the word you'll hear most about such cases is "support". The child is "supported" at school, the lone parent has social workers "supporting" them. Meanwhile the child remains in what sounds like a living hell.

The lone parent doesn't appear to really care for the child, despite all the "support" she has. At a parents evening despite booking an appointment the parent didn't put in an appearance. That's how concerned they are about their child's welfare, a half hour (if that) chat with a teacher was too much trouble.

So the council throws "support" at the parent, the parent gives nothing back and a child is going down a very dark path to an almost certainly bleak future.

The parent won't take responsibility for their child and no one else seems to want to either.

Our teachers work hard, but this lack of interest and support from their pupils' parents is common. This is an extreme case to be sure, but it's not isolated.

There is one lesson that we can all take from this. As well as checking up on a schools figures for "permanent exclusions" do ask about how many "managed moves" they have. They're really pretty much the same thing, just rebranded.