Weaponising the most vulnerable children

[2021hasalowbenchmarktobebetter]

I am absolutely sick of seeing MPs and members of the public using "the most vulnerable" children as a reason to get their own way about schools.

Unlike most MPs and members of the public, I have actually been working with this group of society for two decades.

If people genuinely and generally cared about these children and felt that they were the highest priority group in the whole of society, why did MPs implement (and people vote for them to continue implementing)
-Sure Start centre closures
-the benefit cap
-benefits freezes
-the bedroom tax
-council cuts, leading to reduced numbers of social workers, SEN workers, SEN funding
-almost total decimation of youth workers and youth centres
-reduced youth offending team support
-changes in SEN laws which have disproportionately reduced provision for those economically disadvantaged children without articulate and educated parents
-changes to GCSEs which the DfE's own impact assessment (and subsequent GCSE results) evidenced disproportionately negative impact on economically disadvantaged students and those with SEN
-education funding cuts in real terms
-only a tiny proportion of laptops and routers being given to schools in the autumn term
-schools not being reimbursed for measures to make schools safer, including hand gel, cleaning products etc.
-abolishing educational maintenance allowance

• raising tuition fees?

It took a footballer to get the government to agree to fund holiday meals for these children and I didn't sense a massive amount of concern from many people about why that would need to be the case.

Handwringing about how school staff and unions daring to ask for better and safer conditions is so selfish because "of the vulnerable children" is just the epitome of hypocrisy.

Be honest and say it's inconvenient for working parents, by all means, and (for MPs) how it will make economic recovery difficult if people can't work. But most people need to stop pretending that their concern is for the most vulnerable children. They're not human shields.

If society really wants to protect the most vulnerable children, the last ten years have been a very weird way of showing it.

I agree OP 100%.

We are led by a Prime Minister who does not only has supported all the cuts you refer to (and voted for all of them proposed during his time as MP), but who is so uncaring about children that he does not even acknowledge the existence of one (or more) of his own, and left the mother of four of them whilst she was undergoing cancer treatment.

I think it's also worth pointing out that current schools policy will create more vulnerable children. If a child loses a parent (and let's remember ECV parents are expected to send their children to school) then they are likely to become vulnerable, in some cases it could leave them orphaned and in the care system. If parents get ill and end up with long covid and children become young carers then their kids will be vulnerable. If experienced teachers leave, whether due to feeling unsafe or worse actually being damaged by covid , particularly in SEN schools then vulnerable children miss out.

Yanbu.
And agree that the mental health argument has always been there too. They didn't give a shit a decade ago and ignored everyone pointing this out.
I was (am) one of the MN Frothers who has spent the last decade fuming at the mess we're in.

@nosswith
Absolutely.

@NuttyinNotts
Yes, as a person living with two CEV people, I don't think people appreciate the impact of how stressful it is worrying about bringing the virus home. Far worse for children, I would think. Imagine your family member getting ill and blaming yourself. Family members of CEV people should he given different arrangements and parents of children in that position should be allowed to keep them at home without being fined.

Hear hear. All the faux handwringing is getting on my nerves too.

Agree with your post 100% well said

Spot on OP.

The relief of reading someone summing up so perfectly how I feel is immense!

Superb post

Well said OP.

Also, if school benefits mental health of children so much, why haven't they funded schools to make them safer (smaller class sizes and social distancing and maybe also masks) ?

Their total inaction on overcrowded classrooms - which in itself isn't good for child mental health but more so in a pandemic - has meant thousands of children (in some areas 60% of schoolchildren) isolating and essentially being locked in their houses for weeks on end.

The, thankfully minimal, amount of time we've spent isolating was, according to DD '100x worse than lockdown' because we weren't allowed to leave the house for a walk or bike ride. There were kids having to isolate for two weeks several times in a row. No-one calling for 'schools open at all costs' without any extra safety measures seems to give a shit about that.

Opening without any extra money or extra safety measures to stop airborne spread IS NOT WORKING.

Schools ARE NOT OPEN. Not to all.

@IloveJKRowling

Definitely agree. "Keeping schools open is our biggest priority" doesn't really tally with their refusal to fund the measures that might have made that happen safely.

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