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.

I really don't accept the argument that the checks "do more harm than good" or that the children will be suspicious of authors who have to have the checks

As someone who has worked with children for many years, I see CRB checks as just another box that needs to be ticked before I can start a job. Like handing in a CV or providing references. As for the children being suspicious, how would they know anything about it? Unless their highly strung parents are getting their knickers in a twist about it...

I agree that CRB checks aren't the answer to preventing all child abuse, more could be done to protect children in the home. But refusing to have one if you are going to regularly work with children is petty as far as I'm concerned.

It seems that everyone here is very sure that authors would never be alone with children - how can you be so sure? When I was at secondary school an author came in because he was writing a book for teenagers. We met him weekly in a small group to chat about his draft story and give him feedback. There was no teacher present.
Some time later, he was convicted for owning and downloading child porn. Who knows - if the CRB system had been in place then, they might have found something and he wouldn't have been allowed into school. As it was, several of us knew him quite well as a result of him coming into school, and did not see him as a threat. We would have willingly chatted to him outside school - so that could have led to nightmare situations (as far as I know it didn't...).

I think that the authors are being silly. No-one will presume them to be dodgy simply because they have to have a check.
And at least with the new system it will be 1 check for all different roles - I currently have 5 CRBs for all my different voluntary and paid things - madness!

I strongly suspect that these famous authors can afford it. Plus they are protesting about something that already applies to dozens of people, who aren't famous enough to make a big stink about their character being questioned.

So if I want to be on the preschool committee, even if I never have contact with the children other than to chat to their parents waiting outside, I have to be CRB checked.

I am on the Guides Hut Maintenance committee; that means I occasionally meet with one of the Brown Owls about which Gutter leaks or where to buy printer cartridges. So I now have a CRB check from Guides, too, just because Guides has to do with children.

Honestly, these rich authors are a bunch of whingers. And I do see them as "rich", because a close friend, a published author of many children's books, goes into schools to lead all-day drama workshops. He had to pay for his own CRB check to let him do that work, his main source of income; his books aren't best-sellers. Now, if he were famous enough, he could get paid 3-4x as much just to sit in an assembly for less than an hour, read a few passages and answer a few questions. That would be a dream job for him, low stress, complete doddle, etc.

Henry Porter, writing in today's Observer
"A school in Bedfordshire recently banned parents from attending sports day to guard against paedophiles.
The man in charge of the event, Paul Blunt, from the East Bedfordshire Schools Sports Partnership, was quoted as saying: "If we let parents into the school they would have been free to roam the grounds. All unsupervised adults must be kept away from children. An unsavoury character could have come in and we just can't put the children in the event or the students at the host school at risk like that."
The result of this freakishly protective attitude is that parents weren't allowed to watch their own child compete in the egg and spoon race. What kind of madness is this?"

So all parents should have full checks in order to be allowed over the threshold of any school.

As I said before, soon everyone will need to have CRB checks in place before being allowed to be parents.

Just as an aside.

We had an author in school 2 weeks ago. i had not heard of him before then. He spoke to nearly 400 year 5 and 6 pupils for over 2 hours. They were MESMERISED and it was an amazing experience for them. The next day, he came back to sell his books () and he sold thouusands. I had children with no interest in reading asking if they could read rather than take part in an ad hoc rounders session.

These children will remember that day for the rest of their lives and I know that it will help many reluctant readers to get reading

popsycal, that's been my experience over the years. Michael Rosen, Kit Wright, Michael Morpurgo, Brian Moses to mention only a few of the amazing and inspiring.
They earned every penny and certainly didn't have a second where they had the chance to sit and drink a cup of coffee. Let alone spend time building a relationship in order to misuse it later.
It's getting harder to want to keep offering children exciting experiences with all the mountains in the way.
Children seem to face the world now with so few lifeskills now, from handling a hot glue gun to crossing the road without an adult to being able to use a craft knife or cope with meeting someone they don't know.
More men in primary education?
Fat chance.

I am going to give him a shameless plug actually: Peter j Murray. He was inspiring!

Can I add to this as a children's author who is by no means rich or famous (and still does a day job to pay the bills)? It is annoying that we will have to pay £60 (and I speak as someone who already has an ordinary CRB check as a requirement of my day job). I object to it as £60 is actually quite a lot of money for someone who was only paid £600 for the publication of their last book!

BUT I think it is very unfair of Philip Pullman et al to say that they will now stop going into schools as a protest. As people have said above, having even a non-famous author in school can be a life-changing experience. Imagine how inspiring to a child having someone like Philip Pullman in school could be. His reaction is just punishing the kids for something that is out of their control - the kids who are his bread and butter frankly.

So yes, it is irritating, but I think some people need to remind themselves why they do the job they do and who they are affecting (I don't include Michael Rosen in this rant cos he is amazing).

I thought the Paul Blunt thing must be a spoof, but apparently not. We have taken the final step down into madness.

Alardi, were you joking then or do you really think it makes sense that you need to have a CRB check to talk to an adult because they have contact with children?

has anyone posted this yet?
it shouldn't happen to a vetting database