childrens lauretes wont visit schools in protest of being forced to be CRB checked!

[lexilex]

some thing doesnt ring right with this! what have they got to hide. children need to be protected. at my sons school parents have a CRB check if they help in the classroom alot and i dont here any of us wingeing.

pmsl@ dory's blatant rudeness which nobody else noticed

it is a fucking joke/ and at least the gvt could stump up, if they are going to be all anal about it

I noticed dory's blatant rudeness but ignored it - ignore the good, reward the bad

jambutty, ok you're in a minority of 3 !

most people still think it's an insane idea thankfully

It is ridiculous. What are they going to get up to during an author's visit? Of course children need to be protected but I wish society could recognise the moment where protecting children turns into paranoid insanity.

'What have they got to hide'? - nothing, I imagine, just feel - quite rightly - that this is a ludicrous waste of everyone's time and money.

I'd be overjoyed if DS's school had a visit from the children's laureate. Would I be on the phone bleating to the school 'Ooh - has he got a CRB check?' Would I hell.

Spongebrain - 4. TheProfiteroleThief made some quite interesting arguments on the other thread.
Still not enough to convince me though!

Lol kathy

so we're still counting on the fingers of one hand the number of people who think this is a good idea!

Spongebrain, you're amazed that not everyone shares your opinion?

Um, I'm clearly being tongue in cheek hence the use of the .

Of course I'm not amazed that not everyone share's my opinion .

Not quite sure what point you're trying to make?

apologies for the stray apostrophe, should of course say 'shares'

I wasn't trying to make a point. I didn't think the grin indicated tongue in cheek. Must brush up on my emoticon etiquette. Actually, I hold the view that you should go on the words you read, not on the faces people stick on the end.

I dont think there is a problem with this. I have to have an enhanced disclosure for my job, I dont personally think I pose any risk, but I understand why the checks are done. If it is felt to be needed for the general population in any particular situation then I dont think being an author should exempt people from this.

So, the choice will be made. Force an author or poet to undergo a CRB check, or they can't enter a school and perform.
So they will stop giving performances in school.Why should they pander to the largely ungrounded fears of adults?
Why should they have to? Will it extend to actors offering schools a matinee performance?
The majority of children are endangered and abused by their own family members, CRB checks appear to do little to protect them.

But where do we draw the line?

Do you have playdates at your house? Regularly? I do. Shouldn't we have CRB checks?

My friends regularly babysit for my DC's and come over to my place and socialise with them. Should they have CRB checks?

Should step-parents? Aunts? Uncles? Seriously. Most authors who are not regularly visiting the same school, are less of a threat than our friends and relatives. So surely it makes more sense to CRB everyone else in the world who has regular contact with children?

Good post Goblinchild.

(Sorry looks like my post was responding -madly - to yours, it isn't, I agree with you)

From the Independent Safeguarding Authority
website, I believe this is a definition of the activities which will require a person to be registered with them from July 2010:

"What is regulated activity?
Regulated activity is any activity which involves contact with children or vulnerable adults. This could be paid or voluntary work.
Such activities include:

Any activity of a specified nature which involves contact with children or vulnerable adults frequently, intensively and/or overnight.
Any activity allowing contact with children or vulnerable adults that is in a specified place frequently or intensively.
Fostering and childcare.
Any activity that involves people in certain defined positions of responsibility....

What is controlled activity?
Controlled activities include:

Frequent or intensive support work in general health settings, the NHS and further education settings.
People working for specified organisations with frequent access to sensitive records about children and vulnerable adults.
Support work in adult social care settings."

And people already working in areas of woerk who are already checked/registered will have their registration to the new scheme phased in over 5 years.
I can't see anywhere there a suggestion that individuals going in occasionally to talk to groups of children would have to be registered.
Does that not make it sound like there's been a lot of unnecessary knicker-knotting going on about this today?

I think all parents should be CRB checked. They are constantly left alone with children, wander into schools for Parent Assemblies and to watch End of Term Plays and Musical Evenings. They invite other people's children into their homes. They hang about suspiciously in parks and are friendly towards children not their own. Very very suspect bunch of people. And I bet that statistically more parents are paedophiles than authors

They're about to discuss it on Newsnight.

It might provide more info as to whether the knicker-knotting is justified or not.

LOL, my point exactly Jux.

I turned on the radio part way through one of them being interviewed - most of the objection is on principle that all this distrust is bad and corrosive. A man can't help a crying child any more. Didn't a lost child come to grief because a man who noticed her didn't dare get involved?

Checking people (not just authors!) who come into schools but don't have access to small groups is paranoia.

You get this amount of paranoia with a visiting author who isn't going to be alone with a DC and has no way of contacting them afterwards and then people wonder why we have a lack of male teachers in the primary school, particularly in the early years-it doesn't surprise me!
An author in a school is perfectly safe-they do not need to waste £64! I feel so sorry for out DCs these days.

well I THHINK moprugo is a tosser for minding.

yes but he took the job - he knew the deal; all sorts of the rest of us hate it too so to have a hissy fit for doign what the rest of us put up with is silly.

ROFL he's just said about all parents being CRB checked

id have CRB checked KEnsuke - fgs walking aournd with a kid alone on an island

Good point, the Birdman in Why the Whales Came is a bit dodgy too.

checks are valid for no time at all, you could be charged with crime 5 minutes after the check is run and no one would be any the wiser. They only work if renewed regularly. And I don't think thats the plan with this system. I think its a one off check?