To ask how any non-violent child in Scotland manages to function at this point

[CurdinHenry]

The law now essentially prevents any intervention when an under 18 commits an offence

So we've got violent crime going completely unchecked (indeed it's rewarded with extra visits and promises of "resources" for the perpetrator). It's scary for adults but at least we can try to keep our distance in a (thankfully) ageing population.

How the fuck do kids who have to sit shut in a room with unchecked psychos handle it? Never mind the threat, which must be terrifying, but how do they process how unfair it is? How did we as adults let this total bullshit happen? Obviously blame Nicola sturgeon for yet another woke fuck up.

Don’t recognise this at all, I have children at a Scottish secondary school in an area with a mixed deprivation profile, yes there are isolated incidents but certainly fewer than when I was at school in the 90s. The post about teachers and pupils being hospitalised every day just doesn’t ring true!

I grew up in an SIMD 1 area in the west coast of Scotland and went to secondary school in the 90s.

there were physical fights every single day. I myself got beaten up by several girls for looking in the wrong direction. One girl beat me up and her sister stood on the side and said if I dared hit back she would kick fuck out me if I hit back.

I witnessed racism and bigotry every day and was regularly called a fenian bastard by grown men in the street.

Secondary schools now seem pretty good from that perspective honestly. I walk past the teenagers at my local secondary and they don’t throw things at me. I’m always amazed.

I worry about cyber bullying and knife crime.

This is truly awful, I’m so sorry your son has experienced this. The Scottish education system is based around wonderful principles which are intended to protect the most vulnerable, but in practice these are not implemented with balance so the most vulnerable (and many others) are actually put in harm’s way. Headteachers in Scotland (at least in the councils that I’m familiar with) don’t have much power to exclude compared with headteachers in England; that power seems to sit mainly with councils, who almost never exclude. It’s ridiculous.

Same. My experience of school in the 80s and 90s was similar to yours. None of the teenagers I engage with now report issues at school. I was really worried about my own going to secondary given the reports that floated around - nothing to be worried about and the incidents, which are rare, are low level.

To amswer previous question to my previous comment, yes there are multiple secure accommodations in Scotland for children with behavioural challenges.

I dont accept the namecalling which I receiced in response to my previous post - you dont name call just because someone says something you think is incorrect.

Someone said the current method isnt working either. I wonder if it will take time to bed in. It needs buy in from everyone. I think there will be an age group where the therapeutic intervention might be starting too late to work in early course - their behaviours are entrenched. Hopefully results will come. I think it was brave to try - in the face of previous methods worsening the problem.

Banned permanent exclusion. Closed lots of specialist provision and chucked violent kids in mainstream school. Banned the police from doing anything apart from verbal warnings for under 18s. The nutters are running around doing what the heck they like!

What’s a stage 2 formal complaint? How are we supposed to find out about this? I read the school and councils anti bullying policies from cover to cover at the time and couldn’t see any mention of this.

It depends which local authority you are in. Edinburgh council, for example, have a stage 1 complaint which is essentially a written letter or email to the school and stage 2 is raised at council level. A stage 2 level complaint will be investigated thoroughly and management will suddenly start getting more pro active over your issue.

So if you go to freedom of info requests for Ed council you can ask how many stage 2 complaints have been made against a specific school and you can even ask what the issues of the complaints were pertaining to.

“Resilience”. I bloody loathe that word.

I have heard some absolutely eye-popping stories of violence at James Gillespie’s.

I agree I think issues are much milder now. Unfortunately some children are still victims of horrific bullying and it still takes too long to be dealt with. But it isn’t new.

Yep. Any adult that uses that to excuse violence should be asked if they’d like similar at work.

Teachers and Police have been warning about this for years and no one backed them and often mocked or criticised them, you only have to see some of the posts on here and the lack of parenting and accountability from the poster to see how it has developed. Often the sensible and frank replies from parents who pull them up get jumped on.

It does not prevent any action. It just means they aren’t criminally convicted until they are 12. There is still a lot of action that can be taken.

But often schools etc are slow to progress

my kids are not violent and haven’t had any problems

I’m in England so I don’t hear about a lot about this

@CurdinHenry are you thinking of a particular age group?

I’m wondering how bad it is. I’m very aware that information will be suppressed and statistics are not collected.

My kids are in an Edinburgh secondary, about middle of the exam rankings and def not drawing from the Marchmont type areas. Its fine. In fact, I think its great. DCs tell me behaviour isn't an issue. (Oldest is S5).

I’m in Edinburgh too, ranking mid to lower and school has been excellent. DC2 is in S6 now and we’ve in our 9th year of involvement with the school. Mind you, my friend’s DCs were/are
at Gillespies and she has always spoken very highly of it so it could be that these issues just aren’t being discussed widely enough.

Ok ok, agreed!!! I was obviously being too wet lettucish to write the truth 😂

God, you are so depressingly right 😱

Maybe but then also some people do come online and use a lot of hyperbole and describe the Scottish education system as in complete ruins as though every single classroom is being demolished every day and nobody is learning anything.

It is best for wider society not to write off teenagers and induct them into the prison system so early which means they will likely remain in it and spend their life re-offending, rather than helping them become contributory members of society. The statistics show this is what happens when you rehabilitate children rather than imprison them. But sure, keep on saying we should just lock them up.

Are they actually being rehabilitated, then, instead of just enabled?

The system has been in use for long enough to know that its making things worse not better. Kids need boundaries and consequences and both of those are completely missing from the current system.
We need to start giving proper consequences for criminal behaviour including assaults at school and on the streets. 12 weeks of "support" from social work which consists of 3 sets of 4 weekly visits with a social worker to talk about their feelings and then a wiped record because a diversion from prosecution doesn't require them to admit guilt and everything is dropped including rape charges is not appropriate for anyone nor any kind of deterrent.
If you truly think these kids/adults (anyone under 25) require lighter/non existent sentences then you are part of the problem. If they want therapy then they can get whilst they serve their jail term.

Its an English thing that doesn't apply to Scotland as our schools don't have governors to complain to, we have the school and then the local education department who are the ones refusing to allow anyone to be expelled

So bad they keep getting voted in though eh...

Discrimination is what it calls it in the article, as disabled and poor children suffer disproportionately from exclusion.

There is no evidence the poor or disabled kids are causing the problem, just suffering the consequences.

You writing that poor kids deserve exclusions and characterising them as violent is absolutely awful, a truly Victorian attitude and breathtakingly ignorant and disgusting. You should be genuinely ashamed of scapegoating poor and disabled as a functioning adult who should know better.