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Saved from abuse, but doomed to illiteracy?

I have a 12 year old daughter. Along with I suspect every other mother, I am not keen for my daughter to be sexually assaulted. But being reasonably sensible, I know that the risk of such assault is pretty low. So she goes over the park with friends, has travelled on her own to school since she was 9, walks to the local shops and, shock horror, visited friends’ homes where she has been in the company of their fathers, brothers and assorted other adults. And, do you know, I never thought to check them out first.

I know that I am not a paedophile, because I have four pieces of paper that tell me so. Phew! Four CRB checks, each renewable every three years – a huge industry of paper-pushing and delays. Now that bureaucracy is to be replaced – by the Vetting and Barring Scheme, which is managed by the Independent Safeguarding Authority. The government established the authority in response to the 2002 Soham murders. Yet again they wave the usual red herring to constrain civil liberties, and there is a really fishy smell. The government, along with the tabloids, forgets that Holly and Jessica did not call at Ian Huntley’s house because he was the school caretaker, but because he lived with their teaching assistant. Had the ISA been in existence, he’d have got another job, but he’d still have lived with Maxine Carr.

Now I remember the time of the Soham murders well. It was during the time that the girls were missing that my then five year old daughter and her six year old friend became separated from their mothers at Thorpe Park. I can honestly say that was the worst 25 minutes of my life. But thankfully the girls were sensible and we were reunited after they had asked another mother for help. I can still see that round, smiling lady in a sari, with half a dozen kids of her own hanging off her and my daughter shouting ‘You told me if i got lost to find a friendly looking Mummy – and I did!’. I bet that other mother wasn’t vetted …

Now the new ISA scheme has upset some of our top authors. Names such as Michael Morpurgo, Quentin Blake, Phillip Pullman, Anne Fine and Anthony Horowitz have all hit out at the scheme, saying that they would rather give up speaking in schools than join the ‘outrageous, demeaning scheme’. Under the CRB, occasional visitors did not need clearance, now anyone who even visits a school has to be vetted, even if they are never left alone with a child or children. Pullman states that although he has a ‘non-existent criminal record’ he objects to the way that that majority are being assumed to be criminals.

Mr Pullman, who was a schoolteacher in his 20s, said that he feared that the effect of such schemes was to “corrupt a child’s view of the world, making them think that the basic mode is not of trust but suspicion“. “That’s what we are teaching children, that the world is a dark and nasty place were everybody wants to murder and rape them,” he continued. “It assumes that the default position of one human being to another is predatory rather than kindness.”  How right he is and how sad that he has to say it.

Those of us with two brain cells to rub together know that the majority of abused children are assaulted to someone in their immediate family circle. A very small number are attacked by total strangers. I suspect my daughter is a hundred times more likely to be knocked down crossing the road than assaulted by a stranger. And as she stands on the cusp of adolescence, I want her to know that.

All those top authors and illustrators named above have now said that they will no longer visit schools to encourage children to read and enjoy reading. By what infinitesimally small amount have we reduced the chance that one of those children will be abused? By how much more have we increased the chance that they will be functionally illiterate?

Related posts:

1. Does your child’s school have a vacancy for an incompetent teacher?
2. Age is just a number
3. Hey! Minister! Leave them kids alone!