Teachers 'scared to offer comfort to pupils'

Protection laws make children ‘too hot to handle’ says commissioner

Teachers are too scared to comfort pupils because child protection laws have made youngsters “too hot to handle”, Scotland’s Children’s Commissioner warned today. Kathleen Marshall said she was concerned school staff were now unable to show “a bit of affection” in appropriate circumstances. Her fears were echoed by teachers’ leaders who said staff were frightened to “comfort or cuddle” a child who scraped their knee for fear of being accused of abuse. They said schools had become an artificially “sterile” environment which was bad for both pupils and teachers. Ms Marshall called for a change in the law in cases involving teachers and pupils to stop staff from feeling so hamstrung. She said teachers accused of offences such as assault should not be named until after any trial.
“I have been raising this issue about whether we should change the law to make it that people accused are not named until they are convicted,” she said.
“At the moment, people are named at the beginning of the process when allegations are made and that is what people fear most. There isn’t always a very public clearing, as there is with the public making of an allegation.” She said there was a broad issue over whether it was right to name people before they were convicted.
“That is something the legal system has to address,” she said.
She added: “My concern is that we’ve made children too hot to handle, even when careful handling and a bit of affection is what they most need. That’s the issue I want to look at.”
Her call was backed by teaching unions, who claimed false accusations put their members under enormous stress, and said it was hard for those cleared to go back to the classroom.

Ronnie Smith, general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland, the country’s largest teaching union, said the pendulum had swung from one extreme, when a teacher was always believed and a pupil was not, to the other.
He said: “It does cause harm, particularly in cases of young children who perhaps fall and scrape a knee and need to be comforted or given a cuddle. Teachers now would be reluctant to do that.
“You get a kind of false, kind of sterile relationship between the teacher and the pupil and that takes away from the teaching and learning process.
“We operate in a climate of fear and a whole machine rolls into operation whenever a complaint is made.
“Police and fiscals are reluctant to put the brakes on and want to take the thing through to court for a final disposal, so they can’t be accused of having failed to take the matter sufficiently seriously.”
Earlier this week, the Evening News revealed library staff in West Lothian had been warned not to put children on their knees during story times for fear they will be branded paedophiles. Staff have been told to refrain from physical contact where possible, even when they are trying to comfort a distressed or injured child. And they have been warned not to "lead a child by the hand" out of the library to look for a missing parent. Children’s charity Children First said it was important to ensure pupils did not feel they would be branded liars when they made a complaint.

Spokeswoman Maggie Mellon said: “What we would be concerned about is just turning back the clock to a time when children were not listened to.” But she was sceptical about whether the current mood was benefiting youngsters.
She said: “I don’t think it’s a case of children’s rights — I don’t think they are being any more protected by some of what’s called children’s rights now.
“I think a lot of what we are seeing is agencies protecting themselves and I don’t think the pendulum has swung towards listening to children.
“In fact, what we quite often hear from children is that they're not being listened to.
“I think what has happened is agencies have moved to this self-protective stance, to tell staff not to touch them, not to hug them or hold them by the hand.
“It’s a strange message for children to be hearing about themselves.”

Ian Swanson
20 January 2005

http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=73122005

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