Bronyaur Posted February 13, 2015 Share Posted February 13, 2015 Scrutineer is bang on with his comment and makes perfect sense to me. (The sheep blindly follow the one in front without question). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scrutineer Posted February 13, 2015 Share Posted February 13, 2015 The point is though the OP has not informed the school they are moving overseas. The school has only heard it from the child talking about it and we have no information about how old the child is. If a 9 year old was saying they were leaving next week and you had no notification from the parent would you just ignore it? The Soviets used child informants in this way all the time, but it is a matter of degrees. The OP is fully intending to tell the school of their plans in their own good time, so in the meantime it's simply a case of child's casual talk about leaving. It becomes the school's business when the child drops off the radar, and then I would see it as proper that the state made enquiries about the child's welfare, and it would be entirely the fault of the parents for not bothering to inform the school of their intention to withdraw the child. But that is not what happened here. Here a private family had the Stasi on their doorstep based on the playground chit-chat of kids. If they were really intent on intruding into the family's private life, an informal telephone call to the parents from the school might have been in order, but sending welfare officers to the house is disgraceful. I feel this is only possible because people no longer know where the line is between private and state. One of my favourite books at uni was Zamyatin's "We" - a dystopian story partly ripped off by Orwell and Huxley for their classics - he was a Soviet writer and in the story everyone has a number, not a name, and they all live in glass houses that are totally transparent - you see what he was getting at. It was written in 1921. I should add I read this privately - as if a British Uni would put that on its reading lists! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boganbear Posted February 13, 2015 Share Posted February 13, 2015 You do need to inform the school but post a letter or send an email. The welfare officer is very out of order! at least there is much less of this political correctness and fewer jobsworths in Australia than in the uk. Something i don't miss Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmf1977 Posted February 14, 2015 Author Share Posted February 14, 2015 First I would like to thank everyone for their replies. finally just to clarify, at the time of the visit the children were still attending school. I even made them do their homework the day before their last day we were going to post a letter to the school with various other letters on our final day. Therefore as the children had not yet missed any school and we had not left the country there hadn't even been a pupil absence issue. whenever my children asked about scratches, cuts or scars I had I would always tell them I got them battling tigers or wolves and often had to end the battle shooting the animal dead. I have never had the police round to check if I had a gun or animal welfare to see if I had a collection of tiger skins or wolf pelts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Chewitts Posted February 14, 2015 Share Posted February 14, 2015 Wow!.....I'd take that into your local police station and make a complaint about threats! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tea4too Posted February 14, 2015 Share Posted February 14, 2015 The entire point is that the council has no duty of care towards the children unless they are in the school, or if have very good evidence of mistreatment while the kids are at home. I'm saddened to see the extent to which some people have happily accepted such intrusion into their lives and have lost all sense of the private family sphere and what it means. The state has no place "checking out" the actions of private citizens unless they break the law, except, of course, in police states, where that is precisely what the state must do. Again, the whole point, and by this I mean the entire fundamental basis of our civilization, is that the authorities have no right to "follow up information", i.e. monitor and persecute individuals, unless there is evidence of a crime in commission. Telling your school that you are moving overseas is not sufficient information for them to presume you are guilt of committing a serious offence, and therefore that is the end of it. Sorry for the lengthy reply but some thing are important enough to warrant them I think, even this early in the morning! Generally it is no longer considered acceptable to simply wait for a crime against a child to be committed or reported before it is investigated. Prevention is a key element of safeguarding, and while I guess there will always be a judgment call as to what constitutes reasonable grounds for intervention, personally I would support erring on the side of caution when it comes to a child. That’s not to say that any response should not be proportional, but asking for a forwarding address seems pretty proportional to me tbh. @pmf1977 – I would just add that while the discussion has widened into a much broader debate about state intervention that in no way reflects on your own good intentions, or the health and well being of your own children. Good luck with your move, and safe journey tomorrow. Tx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scrutineer Posted February 14, 2015 Share Posted February 14, 2015 Generally it is no longer considered acceptable to simply wait for a crime against a child to be committed or reported before it is investigated. Prevention is a key element of safeguarding, and while I guess there will always be a judgment call as to what constitutes reasonable grounds for intervention, personally I would support erring on the side of caution when it comes to a child. That’s not to say that any response should not be proportional, but asking for a forwarding address seems pretty proportional to me tbh. @pmf1977 – I would just add that while the discussion has widened into a much broader debate about state intervention that in no way reflects on your own good intentions, or the health and well being of your own children. Good luck with your move, and safe journey tomorrow. Tx As with all things that emanate from the far Left, "safeguarding" is just more semantics, in this case, this neologism really means "pre-emptive intrusion into the private family based on no evidence". We should ignore the transient opinions of the liberal elite and focus on maintaining the ancient and solid rules of our civilization. Here again in your post is a presumption that what is best for the child is state intervention against the family (when there is no evidence of wrong-doing), when we have seen very vividly in recent times, thanks to the Savile enquiry, that in general children are most at risk under the care of the state and in large state institutions, and safest in their own families. Asking for a forwarding address is an outrageous affront to the most fundamental basis of our society, and on a more superficial level, extremely rude to the parents. I will add that this is in the normal case. There are special cases, like for example, where a family has had to have social services intervention, for a good reason, and therefore I believe asking for forwarding addresses is necessary, not just preferable. I wonder if you realize how dangerous your view that "it is no longer considered acceptable to simply wait for a crime against a child to be committed or reported before it is investigated" really is, and what the implications are. Perhaps the state should have a right to go through your bank accounts and bedroom cupboards just in case you are planning a crime? It would reduce crime rates, after all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bound4Tassie Posted February 14, 2015 Share Posted February 14, 2015 Making a bit of a mountain out of a mole hill. Just give them the friends address or hotel. They're not exactly going to pop round. I would've thought you'd tell the school at the beginning on term or as soon as you knew . Out of politeness if nothing else! There might be someone waiting for a place at that school. You know what it's like now for school places. Ah well , not important now as you're off tomorrow! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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