Whether or not we want to, I feel that we are best off attempting to deal with the issues raised by this kind of terrible situation. OK, so it shouldn't have to be our business, but let's face it, it can be. People will bunch us together as questionable characters and laws may become stricter if we aren't very careful.
All in all, a story like this actually makes me feel better about the impending invasion of the educrats into our lives, which will probably happen when they find that we have health records but no matching schooling records. The reason to feel better: we can argue that the legal framework now exists in the UK for a fully proportionate response to this type of deeply immoral and abusive behavior. Children, through the matching of NHS records and school records, will now be known about, they can be found, and truly terrible cases of abuse will come to light; but those of us who are going about our business and fulfilling the legal requirements can be left almost completely alone. Long may this be the case.
Come on you, it is not the legal requirements but the LEA interpretation of those legal requirements that is the issue.
ReplyDeleteYou will be left alone as much as your local LEA rep. deems you should be and the more legal powers they feel they have been given the more license they shall take.
It must be sunny over there as you obviously have your rose tinted shades on.
Start getting grumpy girl.
This was my thinking...(OK, so I have sunstroke): In principle, it doesn't inevitably follow that the more power someone has, the more they will use and abuse it. There are other possible ways in which this scenario could play out and could be helped to be played out.
ReplyDeleteSometimes the more power someone has, the more discriminatory, careful and rational they can become in using it. Once they are no longer struggling in order to access that power, they are then able (perhaps with a little help)to think more clearly about it's use.
So we can now say to the LEAs, "You must be feeling much better now that you have the capacity to look for children who are being locked in rooms for decades at a time etc. That must be setting your minds at rest. Now that this is the case, and you can clearly see that we do not fall into this category, butt out now and forever".
Also whilst the new initiative will extend the problem of the variable interpretation of legal requirements to more people, it will not essentially give the LEAs even more latitude in their interpretation of those legal requirements of the families they know about.