To think it wrong to punish someone for their partner's criminal past

[ReallyTired]

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/teachers-to-be-barred-for-living-with-criminals-9893209.html

Barring teachers and TAs from living with someone who has a criminal conviction is desperately unfair. If someone has no criminal record then they should not be punished by association. Such extreme rules will undermine rehabitiation of offenders as they will lead to a breakdown in relationships.

For example if a teacher has a teenage son who gets into a fight and a caution for assult then the teacher will have to either kick out her child or lose her job.

Young teachers who live in house shares are not in a position to know whether their housemates have a conviction.

I listened to a report about this on the BBC last night and there are indeed teachers and assistants who have been "on suspension" for a couple of months because it was discovered that their partner had a conviction. Convictions - non-sexual - that in most cases dated back to when that person was an idiot teenager and years, even decades, before meeting that teacher or assistant and which was a one-off occurrence. One quoted by a PP was GBH but there were other, much lesser convictions involved also.

It is completely ludicrous and over the top and one union rep interviewed last night said he didn't believe this would make children even 1% safer. Of course it won't. Statistically, most children will be abused by a family member or someone they know well. I don't think many children actually know their teacher's partner unless they live in a very small village. There were 4 teachers in my primary school in a small town of some 2,000 people. The teachers all lived in that town. I can count the number of times I ever met them in the street with their husband/wife/partner over a four-year period on the fingers of both hands.

I think minor convictions aren't a problem, but I can see why major ones would have a possible impact.

Anything sex offender related I agree with. By virtue of being in a relationship with a teacher, or through being a clear friend of a teacher, a child will consider that person to be relatively safe. The person would have access to personal information about the children if anything was brought home. I imagine that teachers tends to talk about children in the class quite a lot. I'm not sure how people not see how the combination of: Someone who works almost exclusively with children and has the trust of those children, and convicted sex offender, aren't a good mix.

Yanbu op. The only tenuous link that people have made to me is about teachers being role models and the government needing to insue people in a role model position are saints. My argument to them was why the government doesn't get involved with other so called role models- footballers, singers, actors- who have committed rape, dv and gbh? Ched Evans and mike Tyson spring to mind. Governments passed nothing to stop them stepping into a role model position and they committed the crimes! So why stop teachers for partner's?

Well quite laughing. I'm desperately trying not to believe the pp who thinks this is all because most primary teachers are women, and women therefore have to be saints, but I'm not sure she's wrong.

So you would have absolutely no issues at all if your child's teacher was married to a convicted sex offender with offences against children? None at all?

Very well said limegoldfinewine

I don't think anyone is really talking about that though Nick - I think we're talking about situations where a teacher lives with people and doesn't know, or where there is historic, low-level convictions, or when an older child goes and does something stupid, or the example a pp mentioned where a teacher was married to a foster parent who was fostering a child with previous convictions.

I would have no issues with any of those scenarios.

And tbf, if a school is good at safeguarding, it's good at safeguarding. There was at least one parent at DS last school who wasn't allowed access to her own DCs, school was exceptionally good at handling it.

lonny isn't think there have been any posters on this thread who do agree with a blanket disqualification, I certainly don't.

However in the (rare!) situation that a teacher is in a relationship with a offender, then I think it's correct that they should have to disclose it and have that subject to a risk assessment.

In a 9 year career I have never felt the need to talk to a student inappropriately about my private life. Anything that 'comes up in conversation' is carefully screened and pre-packaged into a box called 'appropriate for my students to know about me'.

So in the course of talking to sixth formers in PSHRE about staying safe at night I have explained a safe taxi app I use and would recommend as you can use it to call a licensed taxi anywhere and it's safer than taking your chances on the street at night. I have never told them I use it when pissed out in big cities. Because that last bit is surplus to our teacher-pupil relationship.

Likewise I might mention to them that we need to finish an afterschool rehearsal because we all have families to go home too. I've never felt the need to explain the exact make-up of my family situation to them.

As it happens I wouldn't fall foul of this legislation- even if I did work with under 8s. However, I very much resent the implication that teachers should be discriminated against in this way. Because that is what it is, unless this legislation is rolled out to include social workers, doctors, nurses and sweet shop cashiers...

I agree with that wrt to sexual offending, definitely Nick. I think for violent offences they should be 'spent' after a certain amount of time, just as they are in the rest of the world.

And a risk assessment is a sensible approach - the way I read it was they'd be sacked.

But I also think teachers aren't responsible for their housemates!

"So you would have absolutely no issues at all if your child's teacher was married to a convicted sex offender with offences against children? None at all?"

Well its my child's teacher who is coming into contact with my child NOT his/her partner. Provided that the partner kept well away from the school then I would not care. I feel that the best way of achieving this is to have a court injunction against a sex offender stepping foot on school premises. In the unlikely event of a convicted sex offender having custory of a school aged child then other arrangments would have to be made for picking up the child. We already have conditions of parole and court injunctions to keep convicted paedophiles away from schools.

There is a theory that its possible to know everyone in the world by six degrees of seperation. In fact it is quite possible that many parents associate with paedophiles without realising it.

lonny I have read an article that said an employee could apply for a waiver, and a poster mentioned it up thread. So I would like to hope it isn't as black and white as been implied on the article on this thread!

A risk assessment if some lives with a rapist is very different from an immediate ban. A risk assessment to ensure things appropriate are put in place in that situation is correct but every situation involving sex offender partner or family would require different response not banning or sacking teacher.

And I think ops injunction idea is best because it affects sex offenders themselves then no need for ra because already minimsed.

I wonder how this squares with the notion of "freedom of association" ?

At least it's talking about court convictions, rather than the "community intelligence" (aka gossip) which was going to be recorded on vetting forms.

I knew of a local childminder whose partner was on the Sex Offender's register.

I didn't take my child there as it made me very concerned.

However, what MarchandMay says above is very true.

This legislation may give a false sense of security.

My DP has only ever 'met' one of the 800 kids I teach. The kid came over to say hello to me in Tesco (he was shopping with his mum). Didn't even speak to DP. I don't really understand how the DP (or son, daughter, housemate) of a teacher is any more risk to a kid than any other random strangers they might see in the street.

Good! If your judgement is that skewed...that you'd live with a sex offender then no, you can't be a teacher.

I have a friend who is currently suspended on full pay as this has turned up that her husband, who is now in his late 40s, was convicted of something when he was 18. She wouldn't say what it was but it is along the lines of getting into a fight in a pub car park.

Teachers earn enough to run a household of their own. It has something to do with teaching in that children are sent to schools to be taught by those we trust. If those we trust have bad judgement then how can we trust them?*

So you can run a household on £25,000?
My friend should leave her husband of 20 years because of something he did before they even knew each other so she can carry on working?
Utter bollocks.

I think the idea of a risk assessment is sensible.

The problem is that some head teachers are illogical and incredibly judgemental. They will opt for the absolutely safest option and not employ anyone whose partner has a criminal conviction. A lot of head teachers will not employ someone who stole a packet of sweets from Woolworths as teenager twenty years ago and got a caution.

I feel this is an area where head teachers need guidence from experts in managing the risk of a member of staff living with a sex offender. I feel that a person should not have to disclose that they live with an offender until they are actually offered the job. It should be treated like an occupational heath questionaire in that head teachers are not allowed to discriminate on the fact that someone had a nervous breakdown 10 years ago.

Out curiousity should be ban teachers who religious extremists from working in schools. (Given we would have to apply this to all religions to be faire.) Ie. Should a maths teacher who attends regular sermons with Adu Hamza or any other extremist preacher be barred from working with children.

I think that we need more careful vetting of govenors to avoid religious nutters taking over schools. (christian nutters need to be avoided as well!)

You never meet your teachers' partners!

ChocLover2015

You never meet your teachers' partners!

It doesn't matter. They'll still be ... there (slightly unhinged cackle ).

Have they by any chance repeated Brass Eye ?

Actually, at first school, my DDs met most of their teachers' partners as we all lived in the same village.

I'm guessing the idea with not allowing people to teach who's partners are sex offenders is that they are in a position to photograph children etc for their partners. Wasn't this the case of the woman in the nursery a few years ago.

However, as I said up thread, my friend is currently suspended on full pay, and has been for a week and a half, while she waits for her case to be reviewed.
So the children in her class are being taught by a supply teacher and her school is having to pay for this. All because of something her husband did 30 years ago!

Also, it is not up to the head. They have no choice to suspend the staff member until they have had the ok from OFSTED to let them back in.

Pipbin

I'm guessing the idea with not allowing people to teach who's partners are sex offenders is that they are in a position to photograph children etc for their partners. Wasn't this the case of the woman in the nursery a few years ago.

The implication being that people whose partners aren't SOs wouldn't do such a thing ?