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pupil rapes teacher...what CAN be done about schools?

64 replies

aloha · 04/05/2005 21:40

Pyschopathic 15 year old rapes teacher. It's not the first attack like this. What is going on and what on earth can be done to prevent it. If this is what is happening in my area (SE London) in secondary education, how can I send my kids to a local school. It sounds terrifying.

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misdee · 04/05/2005 21:43

move out of london.

its worrying isnt it? i hate thinking about secondry school choices, even tho its 5-6yrs away, its terrifying. i dont think people will look at the leque tables etc so much as how much crime is committed in/around the school.

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MarsLady · 04/05/2005 21:46

I think it's the same rape that was reported last year. He was sentenced yesterday. It's so awful and

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Janh · 04/05/2005 22:04

Yes, it is horrendous - trouble is though, apparently, despite the fact that the boy concerned had a very bad record of assault before this, the information wasn't disseminated - Telegraph .

That wants a swift rethink. People need to know this stuff.

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darlingbud · 04/05/2005 22:07

That undercover programme last week by a teacher scared me a bit. What is happening to children these days? Not enough discipline at home and certainly not enough allowed in schools anymore.

To many laws etc covering children. Its gone too far and is verging on rediculous.

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FIMAC1 · 05/05/2005 07:55

Horrendous, absolutely horrendous. I was reading this at the weekend in the Independent which I didn't know of, the Government are going to employ a Nutrionalist to work on School Meals - as they think there may be a link between poor nutrition and behaviour in schools (surprise surprise)

Nutritionist to tackle unruly classrooms
By Karen Hall and Richard Garner
01 May 2005


A controversial nutritionist with a track record of "curing" disruptive pupils has been enlisted in the Government's fight against growing indiscipline in the classroom.

Patrick Holford has been asked by Ruth Kelly, the Secretary of State for Education, to advise on whether poor-quality food - including cut-price school lunches - could be responsible for the decline in behaviour which is seen as the main problem facing the education system.

Delegates to the National Association of Head Teachers' conference in Telford, Shropshire, yesterday complained that schools must deal with ever-increasing numbers of uncontrollable and occasionally violent teenagers.

Some heads demanded that parents be sent to weekly classes that will help them to teach their children the difference between right and wrong. In the past three months parents were also responsible for more than 50 cases of assault or abuse against teachers.

Last week, TV viewers watched Mr Holford transform the behaviour of three disruptive 14-year-olds, who had been thrown out of school because of behavioural problems. He achieved the transformation in only a month by cutting out sugar and stimulants such as caffeine, and adding vitamin supplements.

Children's eating habits are already the focus of ministers' attention, with the Chief Medical Officer having warned that the epidemic of childhood obesity constitutes a "time bomb" for the health service.

Last month the Prime Minister promised an extra £280m to improve school dinners after the outcry created by Jamie Oliver's campaign against junk food and his Channel 4 programme Jamie's School Dinners. It emerged that the average primary school lunch costs 45p a child.

The Government has set up a task force to prepare advice on minimum nutrition standards for school meals. But, as revealed in The Independent on Sunday, the Department for Education and Skills does not employ a nutritionist.

Now the department has written to Mr Holford, a private consultant, asking for his help.

Mr Holford believes that mental health disorders are related to a person's biochemical requirements. Instead of drugs, he prescribes dietary changes plus vitamin and mineral supplements. "The sad truth is that scientists have been carrying out this research for over a decade," he said.

"But it takes a television programme to bring it to everyone's attention. Poor nutrition is definitely a contributory factor towards crime and mental health problems in later years."

He wants policymakers to raise the importance of nutrition. "If it doesn't happen governments will be bankrupt," he says.

"They will be crippled by the rising costs of Alzheimer's, obesity and soaring crime rates, which will force them to look at the true contributory causes."

Mr Holford is already helping the Government's Food Standards Agency draw up plans to publish health warnings on all foods that have a sugar content of more than 10 per cent.He also hopes that the Government will introduce a tax on sugar.

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aloha · 05/05/2005 16:37

What about more permanent exclusions for violent pupils? I would support this...except where do they go?

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Fio2 · 05/05/2005 16:41

HAD HE HAD MENTAL HEALTH PROBOLEMS BEFORE? oops I havent read the story but I am increasingly concerned about how many vulnerable (and pyschopathic) people get sent out into the community without support.

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suedonim · 05/05/2005 17:04

To Boarding School apparently, Aloha. It's Ruth Kelly's latest idea.

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WideWebWitch · 05/05/2005 20:22

This is outrageous and awful. Poor bloody woman and this boy is 15, I feel a real 'what is the world coming to' when I read stuff like this.

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Freckle · 05/05/2005 20:37

Isn't that just another name for young offenders' institution? State boarding school, my foot.

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bossykate · 05/05/2005 20:42

aloha, agree with you. ds & dd will go to local state secondaries over my dead body.

i don't know what is going on and i don't know what to do to prevent it - i just won't have my children in an environment where something like that could happen, end of story.

oh something else that will terrify you - gang rapes of schoolgirls are on the increase, it just doesn't get reported much...

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happymerryberries · 05/05/2005 20:44

He had previously been found carrying a kife ffs! Why the hell wasn't he expelled?

Why do we pussy fut around they psychopathic thugs making excuses for them. Exclude them.

Far too many excuses are made for bad behavior.

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Freckle · 05/05/2005 20:59

I fail to understand why certain criminal acts, if carried out on school premises, are treated as something much less serious. If something would be treated as criminal on the streets, it should be dealt with just as harshly if it happens in school.

A friend's son was punched by another boy in his school and is now due to have a major operation on his nose as a result. What has happened to the perpetrator? He was excluded for 4 days!! Why haven't the police been involved? Why has he not been charged with assault or even gbh? Because it happened in school. Bl**dy ridiculous.

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aloha · 05/05/2005 21:38

OMG BK - really? It's just so horrific. What are you going to do? Move to Kent/Buckinghamshire or go private? Atm I think those are our options unless things change...only I don't think we can afford private.
I think the situation does seem to be getting worse. I read posts by teachers here and my blood runs cold.

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Caligula · 05/05/2005 21:45

It's one of the reasons I moved out of London tbh. As well as house prices of course. But for me, the Damilola Taylor case was a real psychological turning point. I didn't live far from there, and I was just very frightened that my child might have to go to school with children who were capable of killing him. (It didn't of course, occur to me that my child might turn into the sort of child who would kill another one - which I suppose could happen too.)

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wheresmyfroggy · 05/05/2005 21:51

I think it's disgusting that it came come to incidents like this in schools

every year students are being more and more empowered and all the power is being taken away from teachers and the schools themselves, the students know this and of course are going to take advantage.

Sadly i feel it is too late for a lot of rough inner city schools where a sudden u-turn of teacher/student power would lead to some serious incidents because the kids would resent the change and the particularly bad ones would not be able to control the 'invincible' attitude that they have had stamped into them

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hub2dee · 05/05/2005 22:45

Any teachers with first-hand knowledge do correct me, but there is also an interesting phenomena in schools whereby teachers are not automatically informed of serious psychological problems a child (or their family) might be facing... it is often on a 'need to know' basis to protect the child's privacy... a given teacher sometimes only finds out about a complex / difficult background for a child after a major incident. If they had had the full info before they would have perhaps behaved / taught / managed that child differently, IYSWIM.

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MarsLady · 05/05/2005 23:09

Read more about this boy today. What amazes me is the fact that all the information was there and held by the police and yet no-one informed the school. He was at school with potential (and actual) victims. When Huntley was caught it was the same thing, the police had information about him that wasn't shared.

What sickens me is that my DS1 was selected to receive an award because of his outstanding SATs results. I never told the local council, school never told the local council and yet the local council knew. What about data protection.... oh hang on.... silly me.... that's for rapists and murderers, not your every day average joe!

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Gobbledigook · 05/05/2005 23:10

Vote Labour - schools are just fantastic under them aren't they?

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Janh · 05/05/2005 23:12

Oh, GDG, think on. This boy was 8 when Labour were elected and his parents grew up under the Tories.

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Blu · 05/05/2005 23:26

But in reality, there is no such thing as an environment where this couldn't happen, and it seems that this youth is something of a looose cannon psychopath rather than a badly behaved teenager, IYSWIM. It seems to me that the problem wasn't so much discipline or standards etc, but reporting systems and the failure of any agency to take notice and responsibility of this youth's activities.

I work with many, many young people in the worst schools in this particular area, and actually the vast majority are quite nice young people. They might not always have a great grasp of manners or run-of-the-mill-citizenship (giving up seats on buses, litter etc) but they do have imagination, potential, a strong sense of right and wrong. But like Aloha and Bossykate, I shrink form the idea of sending DS to one of these schools - because the resources simply are not there to support the problems thrown up by the extreme social pressures in the area. Good and dedicated teachers are disempowered by changing goalposts and burocracy, and as soon as they start to make a career for themselves, or want a family, they leave for posts with more potential or in areas with housing which they might dream of being able to afford.

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suedonim · 05/05/2005 23:28

Freckle, such schools were called 'Borstal' when I was young!

I'm just so glad we have great schools up here - maybe you all need to move to Scotland.

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Blu · 05/05/2005 23:31

I was going to say - many of these kids have parents who were plunged into poverty during the sink years of unemployment under Thatcher, the years when their housing estates were sold off, and the years in which getting consumer goods NOW became a priority, and Social Security became ever more insecure.

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ScummyMummy · 05/05/2005 23:31

I think this particular terrifying and horrific crime is actually much more an indictment on social services/youth offending/police type services than on this particular school and the behaviour of the kids who attend there. This kid simply shouldn't have been anywhere near a mainstream school and should have had intensive support from a very early age, it sounds like. Their was a previous incident where charges against him were dropped too. The policemen quoted in the cast off paper I read on the tube said that this was very much an isolated and unheard of incident that was completely out of keeping with the school's usual profile.

I think it's the constant low level disruption that drags schools down really. Dangerous awful stuff like this is rare, even in quite rough inner London schools. Not minimising people's distress re srcondary choices tho- very tough if the schools nearby are not good enough.

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happymerryberries · 06/05/2005 06:34

But scummymummy, you have forgotten the wonderful power of inclusion . Armed with an IEP the teachers were supposed to deal with this boy, who obviously has profound mental health issues. He probably had an IEP for EBD. It would have given his teachers helpful hints like, 'don't back him into a corner' and 'always give him a face saving way out of confrontation'.

When will we learn that there are children who cannot be included in mainstream? These children need more than a ratio of 1:30, and well meaning platitudes.

Including children like this doesn't help them, can devistate the education of every other child in the class and is driving more and more teachers out of the profession.

Blu is right, most children are not like this, most are wonderful, but you only need one or two in a class to have chaos on your hands. For the good of all of our children we need to stop messing about and do something about this.

And we get a secretary for education who's first statement was 'The most impostant thing in education is parental choice', not the education of children, or their well being or their saftey, but parental choice. So more spin then.

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