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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think that there should be a pupil premium to help schools support children who have a parent in prison

76 replies

ReallyTired · 05/11/2015 12:32

Prison should be there to punish the adults, but it has a negative affect on families. Sometimes sending someone to prison is unavoidable. I think providing additional funding for children with a parent in prison would enable schools to support such children better.

OP posts:
ManorGreyhound · 05/11/2015 12:34

No! The impact on your family is one of many things that you should think about before you commit a crime!

I can't believe anyone would even suggest such nonsense.

BarbarianMum · 05/11/2015 12:34

I agree but I doubt DC does. Pupil premium was a Lib Dem idea so I can't see it being expanded.

CocktailQueen · 05/11/2015 12:34

If pupils are being disadvantaged financially by a parent being in prison, such that they receive free school meals, they will automatically receive PP too.

If they don't receive FSM while their parent in prison, why should they receive PP?

ghostyslovesheep · 05/11/2015 12:35

YANBU - but - as you can see - when it comes to the families of prisoners lots of people lack empathy or understanding :(

CocktailQueen · 05/11/2015 12:35

*parent IS in prison

FrozenPonds · 05/11/2015 12:37

Where would it stop?

Funding for children of the chronically ill? Bereaved children? Children whose parents are just utterly uninvolved?

Where would the money come from?

Decent pastoral care all round is all you need, and good teaching, and high expectations.

ManorGreyhound · 05/11/2015 12:37

I will just about agree with the idea that children should not be disadvantaged by their parent's socio economic status, so broadly support pupil premium, but the idea that a deliberate criminal act should be considered in the same way? Good grief, I've heard it all now!

Ricardian · 05/11/2015 12:38

How many children are there who have a parent in prison but have not been in receipt of FSM in the past however many years it is?

Stompylongnose · 05/11/2015 12:38

I would have thought that some children end up on Free School meals as a result of household income halving.

Yanbu but I think that there are many children who need support likes ones who suffer a bereavement, divorce, become a carer, have sick/disabled family....

ManorGreyhound · 05/11/2015 12:39

FWIW, there is a very high degree of correlation between poverty and crime, so pretty likely that the DC's of a prisoner will be in receipt of PP anyway.

ManorGreyhound · 05/11/2015 12:39

(the school will be in receipt of the PP)

EElisavetaOfBelsornia · 05/11/2015 12:41

Way to blame the children Manor Hmm

I don't agree though, OP, there are social care services which support families of prisoners, and liaise with schools.

Holstein · 05/11/2015 12:42

I think it's an interesting proposal, and certainly i know children with a parent in prison that are not on PP.

Holstein · 05/11/2015 12:43

Sorry- to clarify- know because of my work, not that I'm a nosey busybody.

Gileswithachainsaw · 05/11/2015 12:43

Tbh a massive proportion of families will go through things that render them.in serious trouble one way or another yet still not qualify fir Pp or whatever.

deaths
births
illness
redundancy
crime
drugs
drink
addiction of any sort really

you can't find every single one nor is one less serious in terms of its effects than any others.

where do you draw the line

ManorGreyhound · 05/11/2015 12:45

Parents need to consider the impact their choices have on their DCs, in many areas of life.

Knowledge of the fact that your poor choices will cause your DCs to be disadvantaged acts as a powerful incentive to keep people on the straight and narrow.

If we remove that incentive by having the State picking up the tab, why would people not just behave as they please?

spanisharmada · 05/11/2015 12:47

I think it's a very odd, and I had thought outdated, idea that children should pay for the 'sins of the father' as it were.

ManorGreyhound · 05/11/2015 12:47

I really wish the left would have a think about how their policies just serve to keep people trapped in poverty (and in this case criminality).

It just makes me so sad to think of people condemned to this horrible cycle by what I am sure are well-intentioned, but poorly thought through ideas.

EElisavetaOfBelsornia · 05/11/2015 12:48

And in those cases there are support services to which schools can refer the family. Schools are there to educate. I do understand that home circumstances have an impact on the child's education, but lots of children in the class will have differing needs. Most of our PP pupils are not the same as the group which needs additional help, but PP are the ones who get funding. So you find ways to provide what's needed within the constraints of the government requirements - as usual.

MumOnTheRunAgain · 05/11/2015 12:49

Does the pp benefit the individual child then? I thought it was all in the lot together and then the whole school benefited that way?

ManorGreyhound · 05/11/2015 12:49

Of course they should - if there is no incentive for you to make good choices (because the state will ensure that the outcome for your DCs will be the same whatever you do) then society really will fall apart.

EElisavetaOfBelsornia · 05/11/2015 12:50

Manor, are you seriously saying parents would commit imprisonable offences solely in order to lever some additional funds to their child's school? Do you listen to yourself?

ManorGreyhound · 05/11/2015 12:50

Sorry, thread moved on there! That was to Spanish

Fourarmsv2 · 05/11/2015 12:50

Do you agree with children with parents in the Armed Forces receiving pupil premium?

BarbarianMum · 05/11/2015 12:51

What are you on about? You do know that when their was no welfare state and no 'picking up the tab' criminality, poverty, ignorance and general human suffering were much, much greater, don't you?