Name and Shame UK
We expose the dirty deedsters
Guilty members of the establishment never seem to be published
Vigilant Observer writes ...
When educational standards slip so badly that swathes of primary school children emerge from their first six years of tutoring unable to read or write, it immediately highlights deficiencies in teachers' capabilities. When, some years later, record numbers of children pass their GCSEs each year it suggests teaching standards have improved. The sceptics amongst us don't believe this of course. We think pass levels have been manipulated to produce better results. To some extent, our suspicions are confirmed when 98% of A-level students gain the passes that will enable them to proceed to universities, many of which now specialise in Mickey Mouse degrees.
For the moment, let's concentrate on the primary school teachers. If some of them can't teach our kids to read and write, what can they do that
might help the children to flourish? Are they actually any good in any other aspects of child support?
In some cases the answer is no. But they don't have to worry, they will be protected. The only losers are the children they fail.
In the following report you will read about a small boy who was bullied at his first school in Wales. His teacher could have done something about it but her response was that the boy was a 'tell-tale'. So the bullying continued, got worse even, and the long-term effects were catastrophic.
When the authorities received a complaint from the parents, up went the barriers. The bureaucratic mafia closed ranks to avoid blame and it didn't matter to them how many laws they broke to cover up their negligence.
Our correspondent writes ...
The Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) say they take school bullying very seriously but our experiences shows they don't put their claims into practise.
At the age of five, my son went to a tiny local school where he was badly bullied from the outset. Although his personality changed dramatically during this time he refused to say what was wrong. It transpired he had reported the bullying to one teacher but she accused him of being a tell-tale.
The last year he was at the school (when he was just six) this same teacher started bullying him. She said he was unable to focus and gleefully wrote on his report that 'he now sits on his own'. Bear in mind that she was talking about a very quiet, well-behaved and very intelligent child.
In desperation I took him to see the health visitor who described him as 'a delightful child who may be bored and under-stimulated' - it took her only five minutes to reach that conclusion. But the teacher refuted any suggestions that he was bored or that he was having problems reading. Instead, she made him stay in most break times and often at lunch time but he was scared to tell us in case he got into trouble .
After two years of bullying, which the teachers ignored, we were told by another parent to complain to the school governors though we later learned that complaining only made things worse.
The governors arranged a 'meeting' but originally only invited me. Presumably they thought it was easier to intimidate a woman. At the meeting, we made it clear - and it was accepted and recorded - that we had never received a complaints procedure (which is required by law), a school prospectus (referred to incorrectly/misleadingly by governors as a 'school book') or a statement about the school's anti-bullying policy. But, all in all, the Governors meeting was a whitewash and we were conned.
After this battle, we transferred our son to another school where he was again bullied by older boys for 9/12 days. This time our complaints led to the head teacher calling him a liar and accusing us of a 'witch hunt'. She is now acting head at BOTH schools!!!
I removed him from school after life-saving advice from Kidscape. He saw the community paediatrician who thought he needed to see the educational psychologist and diagnosed him as self-harming and school phobic. The LEA hassled me non-stop for sick-notes and threatened me with legal action; refusing to accept that School Phobia was a reason to be kept off school. WAG say children with school phobia must be treated in the same way as sick children and MUST NOT be threatened.
I had a meeting with LEA and was given the choice to de-register or provide a sick-note. But if I de-registered him he would not be allowed to see the educational psychologist. A consultant paediatrician requested LEA to ring him about the non-attendance but LEA declined.
The harassments and threats continued until the consultant wrote and said 'this child is not fit to attend school'. During this time my child continued to self-harm and started saying he wanted to kill himself. As we have no TV, he certainly did not pick this up from the media: he actually felt it.
LEA did not back-off until my child had seen the educational psychologist and I de-registered him but they added in writing that 'de-registering him would be a backward step'
I made a formal complaint about the teachers' treatment of my child to the Director of LEA; his response was 'wait until we receive educational psychologist's report before jumping to conclusions'. I sent him the educational psychologist's report which showed a VERY intelligent child with Dyslexia. The director of education replied in writing that 'two years was not long enough for a teacher to spot such problems'. Again this contradicted all WAG publications and SEN Code of Practise for Wales (much of which also has the backing of the law)
I made a long and detailed formal complaint against LEA to the chief executive of County Hall - he dismissed the very serious complaints and gave LEA a pat on the back.
I then complained to the Ombudsman. The complaint took months to put together, but it was supported by piles of documented evidence and was, in the opinion of many voluntary agencies, 'water-tight'.
But the ombudsman kicked the complaint out without even taking the time to go through it properly. He said I liked to complain and that I refused to accept the LEA answers (many of which were not even lawful). One complaint was that the LEA had submitted a falsified copy on minutes of the meeting to show them in a far better light whilst distorting the true facts. The Ombudsman thought this was OK and couldn't see what the problem was!
Initially, when I reported the bullying to the LEA, the Director of Education wrote saying "perception doesn't appear to reflect reality" and he denied the bullying despite a Governors' meeting letter saying the bullying had been 'dealt' with. That presumably confirmed it had happened.
The consultant had written that the 'up to 50 finger-tip sized bruises my child got was certainly due to bullying and nothing else'. Yet it took over two years for the director of education (I use the term lightly) to apologise for his nasty, insulting, and offensive statement but his apology was only conditional - the condition being 'if it had caused upset'. He refused to apologise for the content and refused to withdraw it despite evidence that his statement was a lie. He argued that the school told him there was no bullying despite what the governors said. So it's apparently acceptable for a school to lie to the Director of Education about bullying and he naturally accepts and acts on those lies without ever questioning the school about them. (These are the supposedly 'caring people' in charge of our children?)
We then complained to Pupil Support at WAG, who agreed to investigate our complaint against the Governors. They sent us details of WAG procedure which showed NO time-limit for submitting complaints or additional complaints. During the WAG investigation we received a copy of Circular 03/04 (WAG) which shows the procedure the governors SHOULD have used. Many of the inclusions have the backing of Law. We discussed additional complaints, based on Circular 03/04 with WAG who agreed in a letter to include them and wait for them to be detailed in writing by us. But when we got the report from WAG they had excluded these complaints (with legal backing) because they were supposedly 'received outside the time-limit'. When I pointed out that there was no time-limit and sent the evidence supplied by WAG, WAG used the excuse that the contents of Circular 03/04 were only recommendations. I replied that they have the backing of law and must be implemented.
The final fob-off? WAG said they upheld the (minor) complaints (approx 5 out of 80) but could do nothing because our child was no longer at the school. The truth is that my child was not at the school for ANY part of the complaint procedure but WAG agreed to take it up knowing this.
It is all an emotionally exhausting, stressful, time-consuming exercise apparently intended to wear parents down and make them drop their complaints. WAG believe that keeping the Chinese people employed making millions of anti-bullying wrist bands is more effective than investigating complaints fairly and honestly.
One particular incident of bullying was when my then 5 year old child was attacked in the school toilet by a 10 year old - the main school bully. As a result, my son still doesn't like going to the loo on his own and prefers me to wait outside the door. This incident (we don't actually know what happened as he can't talk about it) resulted in the school having to ring me to collect him. He had severe stomach pains because he needed a pee and wouldn't go near the school toilets. Then he stopped drinking so that he wouldn't need a pee.
The complaint about this incident involved three teaching staff and was witnessed by the whole of the big class yet the school record shows just a tiny little event of no real significance.
They - the school, the governors and the LEA - have got away scot-free. Why? Because I can't afford to pay a solicitor to take them to court. The legal Aid system now makes it almost impossible to take a bullying case to court unless of course your child was set upon by 20 thugs, stabbed, raped and set on fire all at once.
One parent who contacted me, whose daughter was beaten up by around a dozen other girls, was told by the head teacher that her daughter 'provoked the attack'. This was a different school but the attitude towards bullying is exactly the same in most schools. Parents are told they are over-reacting, their kids are over-sensitive. Then they move up to 'you're all neurotic' and finally end with 'you're a liar and a trouble maker'.
The majority of parents are never shown a complaints procedure though by law all new parents of children at school should be given one. Most I spoke to had never seen or been advised of an anti-bullying policy or a school prospectus which should detail all this information. Such documents are kept hidden so that parents have little knowledge of how to complain officially and will have little or no evidence should they wish to take their complaint further.
I have spent three years trying to get justice; I have had to learn laws, procedures, recommendations, policies and so forth. I did not make a single complaint that was not backed up by evidence and documentation, and it was so stressful and exhausting that a simultaneous house move, divorce and mugging may have been easier. In hindsight, there was no point in making the complaints. It has taken my precious time away from other important matters and caused ill health.
Meanwhile, my child has still not received an apology; he still believes his suffering and the ruination of his life means nothing to those we entrust to protect our children. Most bullied kids just want an apology and validation but they are still waiting and wanting.
If anyone else has similar problems I can warn them not to bother with the Children's Commission for Wales either; they are in the same club as the LEA, schools, governors and government. And I'm not the only parent to say that.
Please expose these heartless, dishonest, corrupt, cowards for what they really are. I have all the paperwork to substantiate my claims and I am happy to share it.
Oddly enough, the woman who investigated the complaint was suddenly no longer working at the job - perhaps she did it too well for the WAG
CJ, Fishguard, Pembs
Mary Apted of Reigate writes:
I completely agree with everything said above.
People involved in education are self-regulatory and can act with impunity. The laws and procedures that are in place to protect our children stop at the school gates and schools are not accountable to anybody.
My 8 year-old son was bullied at school, his teacher accused him of being a liar and made him write letters of apology to the bullies and sign a statement to admit to lying. We complained to all the bodies we could - if we had banged our heads against the wall we would have got the same satisfaction.
NOBODY supports parents to enable them to find out the truth and the only purpose of the LEA etc is to cover up and whitewash incidents and complaints.
Sarah Long of Kent writes:
Wow! This article may well have just saved me. My son is now also school phobic has been off sick and along with bullying he had to cope with
Asperger's, dyslexia and dyspraxia.
We have been given the run around and been sent a letter from the LEA because we have made too many complaints to the school about frequent bullying
- 20+ incidents = 20+ verbal or written complaints makes sense to me that if the bullying continues so we will draw it to their attention.
what a load off piffle....What is the point? I like you thought at some point someone will have some common sense but I thank you for your article as this has saved me the time, effort and emotional burden of continuing an already painful and arduous fight. THANK YOU..
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Winston S Churchill
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Editorial Comment:
I have now studied all the documented evidence our correspondent accumulated and it proves conclusively that this was a major cover-up at all levels. Every person in authority that our correspondent approached totally ignored the facts and the evidence. All their combined efforts were aimed at hiding the truth and avoiding accountability. Like all members of the corruptocracy (it's a new word I just invented) they thrive on lies, they fabricate evidence in their favour, and they know they will never be held responsible because they can immediately muster sufficient additional liars to completely outnumber anyone who tries to expose them. And, amazingly, they all keep their jobs. In a just world, they would be dismissed instantly and would then be padlocked into the stocks in the town square.
But who knows? Come the revolution...