Inquisition 21
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Brave New School
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The chairman of the NSPCC’s Full Stop Campaign is being supported by the UK government in building his own schools from which parents can be further distanced and children encouraged to make disclosures about them.
Brave New School
By The littleman
The chairman of the NSPCC’s Full Stop Campaign, (soon to be knighted by all accounts) Andrew Rosenfeld, has applied to the government, under the City Academy scheme to run his own school in North London. Under the scheme Mr. Rosenfeld puts up £2 millions and the government matches it with a further £22 million to set up the school. In return for this largesse, he will determine exactly what the children are taught and picks his own governors (none of those silly parent or teacher governors of course) and teachers with no interference from the government at all.
Originally the city academies were set up to promote specialisms, such as science or sport, but this proposed new school will be the first to teach ‘community values’ and will ditch the more academically rigorous subjects (like maths and science) to make room on the curriculum for the bright new social awareness courses. Which of course fits in nicely with Tony’s new respect agenda, (Andrew, you really are being a bit obvious about wanting that knighthood) and so its extremely likely he’ll get the green light.
According to Mr Rosenfield, a property developer, the children will start each day with breakfast (presumably as they are not being properly nourished at home) followed by a ‘health check’, so the school can check for signs of abuse before the school day starts. And then they will be taught ‘social awareness’ where students would learn through the curriculum about society and community and how to give something back to it and, of course, to discuss any abuse they might be suffering at home. Their parents will also be expected to attend evening classes on parenting and they risk being reported to the social services if they fail to attend. However the school will not be offering anything that could actually help any student there to go on to find a job, as that would be too materialistic.
As Mr Rosenfeld pointed out: "I am very concerned about the way the next generation is moving, where people are judged by material belongings, rather than who they are and what their contribution to life is. I am very keen to try and change that balance. Young people in this country have, in my view, reached a crossroads, living as we do in an increasingly materialistic and, some would say, superficial society. People are judged on what they take out of society rather than what they put back. The aim of this academy is to put social welfare and community responsibility at the forefront of the schools curriculum and to instil within pupils the idea that a commitment to others and a sense of community and family is every bit as important as academic and financial success."
Mr Rosenfeld is well known for the company he founded and chairs Minerva and the fact that he is strenuously fighting the pensioners of Allders (which Minerva owned) which went bust. They, quite unreasonably, want access to the pensions that they have contributed to over the years but apparently he does not agree. A shining example to his future students on materialism that is to be applauded if only for his very right on, new Labour ‘do as I say, not do as I do’ philosophy.
It’ doubtful whether a bookmaker in the land will offer odds on the number of ‘abuse’ investigations shooting up in poor benighted Brent. And if the other City Academy in the borough (Capital City Academy) is anything to go by then exam results will dramatically worsen (only 16% of City Academy’s students reached levels A to C in GCSEs the worst in the country). But what does that matter when social conformity is the goal?
Unfortunately the school will not be offering any sports facilities (so it seems that obesity is not a ‘social factor’) as the proposed school is being built on the Wembly Park Sports Ground, the only playing fields for miles around in the Borough, thus depriving the citizens of one of their few green areas. But the students will be given access to wide screen plasma TVs so they can watch sport even if they can’t actually take part: so that’s alright then.
The school is likely to be built by partners in ‘School Works’, an organization run by Ty Goddard that aims to bring together property companies (such as Minerva) with schools in order to promote best practice (in what he doesn’t say). Ty was the Chair of Education on Lambeth Council (that shining example of child care which fought tooth and nail to stop having to disclose that it employed a convicted paedophile in one of its children’s homes for years – where children were sent after being ‘rescued’ from their alleged abusive parents). He has also worked as the UK and European political advisor for the NSPCC, lobbying around child protection issues, particularly during the passage of the Sex Offenders Bill, and is generally credited with convincing our legislators that anyone who views child porn is a paedophile in the making.
Mr Rosenfeld is being backed in the Lords by the life peer Lord Harris of Peckham (the founder of Queensway carpets and Carpetright) who controls his own school (Bacon's City Technology College) and coincidentally is the deputy chairman of the NSPCC’s Full Stop campaign and sits on the NSPCC National Appeal Board and Executive Committee (whatever they do). The extremely modest life peer already ‘backs’ schools in Bromley and Croydon and is widely expected to back another in Mitcham.
This announcement coincides with the call from the NSPCC for the government to front up another 25 million a year so that over 20,000 ‘medium level’ child offenders (i.e. porn downloaders) can be monitored day and night. These include the Orees, who it appears have not been through enough. This use of funding would be controversial in any society where the levels of violent crimes are (even after the home office has massaged the figures) on a dramatically upward curve - for example violent crimes against the person have been increasing on an average of 7.8% per year under the current government. But in the new morally puritanical society we live in (and having the backing of the News of the World, the Daily Mail and of course The Sun), they are likely to take money from policing the streets and instead reallocate policemen to sitting in cars with no hubcaps outside the houses of porn downloaders and warning local people about the perverts in their midst. And so what if your granny gets mugged for her pension, this is a crusade and crusades need access to resources.
Of course it is going too far to ask the NSPCC to stump up some of the £129 million (and counting – its aiming for £250 million) that it has raised under the Full Stop campaign (which is additional to its ‘normal’ fund raising), as it needs that for lobbying governments to bring in ever more restrictive laws (at least according to its press briefings) and for sponsoring readers in child protection at universities. It certainly can’t be expected to use its scarce(!) resources to actually create safe environments for children; for example it recently pulled out of backing the battered women’s refuge in Stockport, which is being forced to close, where physically abused children and their mothers sought refuge from violent spouses. And has replaced it with …… a telephone helpline.
On a more cheerful note the closure was announced in the same week that the NSPCC and Manchester Police (Stockport is a suburb of Manchester) launched a landmark new initiative to tackle child abuse on the internet.
Child protection officers from the NSPCC are joining Greater Manchester Police internet investigators in an effort to hunt paedophiles and trace internet child abuse victims under the new, sinister sounding, "E-spy" project. NSPCC director Wes Cuell said he hoped the initiative would bring child abusers to justice and save exploited children from further victimisation. He said: "The internet has made it much easier for paedophiles to organise and exchange images that fuel the horrific market in child abuse. Behind the images are real children who have suffered. It is important to get convictions."
Two full time social workers from the NSPCC's Special Investigations Branch will join the seven full time officers in Greater Manchester Police's Abusive Images Unit in April next year. A valuable, and no doubt totally justified, use of scarce resources in an area that is suffering from massive gun, gang and drugs problems and with a force that is finding difficulty in recruiting more officers to patrol the streets and protect is citizens.
Assistant Chief Constable Dave Whatton of Manchester Police said: "Project E-spy aims to show that victims and their abusers can be traced, given the resources (hint, hint). GMP have linked up with NSPCC, which works across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, to ensure images are tracked and intelligence shared no matter where the abuse originates.”
As they pointed out, they are keen to emphasise that the public has a role to play in the fight against paedophiles. And they are calling on anyone who may stumble across disturbing sites and photographs to contact them and they will be dealt with sympathetically.
Am I the only one saying ‘Yeah right’?
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