'Safeguarding issues' caused by timetable changes

[Ianno87]

Putting a member of staff on the station? I never heard of such nonsense. Sounds like someone pursuing an agenda.

Did something similar at my school from time to time. Place a member of staff (usually one sniffing around for a promotion) strategically to stop pupils wandering to one bus stop further down the road (happening to go past the sweet shop/newsagent). No seeming purpose other than to exert some 'control' on students outside of school.

 

[Dai Corner]

Did something similar at my school from time to time. Place a member of staff (usually one sniffing around for a promotion) strategically to stop pupils wandering to one bus stop further down the road (happening to go past the sweet shop/newsagent). No seeming purpose other than to exert some 'control' on students outside of school.

Similarly, at the school where I worked staff were deployed to supervise children leaving by the back gate to catch service buses from the adjacent stop. The majority caught the dedicated school buses from inside the site.

 

[Clip]

Did something similar at my school from time to time. Place a member of staff (usually one sniffing around for a promotion) strategically to stop pupils wandering to one bus stop further down the road (happening to go past the sweet shop/newsagent). No seeming purpose other than to exert some 'control' on students outside of school.

Seems to happen a lot down by my friends with teachers placed on various street corners making sure the kids disperse quickly from the high street.

 

[Roose]

Why do the kids have to travel to a school in another town. Is there not a senior school in Barrow?

To answer your second question first, there are four secondary schools in Barrow, one rated as Inadequate by Ofsted, two Good and a fourth (a former private, now 'Free' school) 'Requires Improvement'. In the rest of Furness there is another at Dalton, just outside Barrow, rated Good, one at Coniston, twenty-five miles away, also Good.

Ulverston Victoria, too, is rated Good despite being found to be Inadequate in 2007. It had improved to Outstanding by 2011.


The short answer to your first question is that they don't but for many years now parental choice has been important in school allocation, and rightly so. Throughout the country thousands of children travel many miles away from their neighbourhood school, sometimes passing others en route to attend a school that their parents believe will best meet their needs. Sometimes this may be because of Ofsted judgements, sometimes for a specialism, sometimes on social grounds, sometimes based upon snobbery and so on.

Children of my acquaintance catch a coach at 07:20, organised by their school, to travel across Essex to a school their parents believe has a "better class" of pupil. That school's coaches tend to follow routes through what are perceived to be the 'nicer areas' of that section of the county. The thread has included a focus on safeguarding and child welfare - one wonders to what extent is children's welfare affected by seventy-plus minute journeys at either end of their taught school day, with homework to face on their eventual return home?

In Cumbria, a school in a small town organises buses from a much larger place nine miles away while another school in a large village on the other side of that larger place does the same. The bus routes focus on the parts of town with owner-occupied properties and tend to avoid areas with significant social housing. Make of that what you will but four schools in the larger place being 'cherry-picked' have been rated Inadequate (Special Measures) in the last fifteen years.

 

[AnonymousUser1]

FWIW, on the "Safeguarding" topic, this shows how much the "Safeguarding industry" has progressed from actually protecting children from abuse and similar on towards justifying their own existence by "crying wolf" and causing anything that might mildly inconvenience a teenager or cause them to have to experience the big, nasty outside world for more than necessary to be considered a "Safeguarding issue".

Even if these teenagers (old enough to get the train to school themselves in what is a very safe area of the country indeed) have to sit outside somewhere from 0800 to 0830 and from 1530 to 1630, or whatever, they really won't care. They'll enjoy spending time with their friends.

It is not a "Safeguarding issue", it is an issue of mild inconvenience. And those who say it is a "Safeguarding issue" are doing a massive disservice to those who are unfortunate enough to be actually experiencing a real one such as parental abuse (because most of the time it is parents and close family who do that kind of thing).

For using that phrasing the school should be ashamed of themselves.

to the privileged , true equality looks like oppression ...

typical white middle ignorance being displayed in this topic by the above poster and others

 

[Pete_uk]

In what way?

If the kids are not on school grounds in school time I don't see why it's the schools problem.

 

[Bletchleyite]

to the privileged , true equality looks like oppression ...

typical white middle ignorance being displayed in this topic by the above poster and others

Eh?

What exactly has race or social class got to do with the question? People of all races[1] and classes travelling from Barrow to Ulverston will be equally inconvenienced (or convenienced, on the way home; it has been repeatedly pointed out that the return train's time is actually more convenient).

OK, Barrow isn't as posh as Ulverston, but it certainly doesn't only contain poor people. (And counter to that Ulverston has a few council estates and other non-rich areas too - my sister used to live on one of them, though admittedly they are quite nice so far as council estates go, and the only main problem with them is the construction of the houses which causes them to tend to be quite cold and damp and expensive to heat).

[1] Though knowing the area, other than eastern Europeans there is not an awful lot of diversity.

 

[Roose]

OK, Barrow isn't as posh as Ulverston...

Hahahaha!

Ulverston is a really pleasant, industrial market town and 'dormitory town' for Barrow. I don't think of anyone sensible who lives there would think of it as posh.

Barrow is also a centre of advanced manufacturing, rather larger of course, with pockets of significant social deprivation but also a high proportion of owner occupation with employees at all skill levels from artisan to professional in the town's shipyard, other advanced manufacturing and process industries.

The towns have lovely settings, Barrow being coastal and Ulverston nearly so, both near to - and with the background of - the Lakes.

Sorry, I've gone off-topic again but some of the nonsense about Furness does need challenging.

PS 'Posh' - such an outmoded concept!

 

[AlterEgo]

Hahahahhahahaha putting a member of staff on the station to tell the kids not to go into town each day.

I bet Ulverston is REALLY dangerous at 8am.

Pathetic.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Hahahahhahahaha putting a member of staff on the station to tell the kids not to go into town each day.

I bet Ulverston is REALLY dangerous at 8am.

Pathetic.

I suspect it's more a case that there will be a campaign waged against the school because the kids hanging around cause "trouble" (more a noise nuisance than anything else) and the school are putting them there for that reason.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Ulverston is a really pleasant, industrial market town and 'dormitory town' for Barrow. I don't think of anyone sensible who lives there would think of it as posh.

OK, not posh (though it does have a well-used Booths, which by all accounts is much better than Waitrose) but it is a very nice place. As I said upthread my sister used to live there so I'm very familiar with it. I do miss visiting.

I'm less familiar with Barrow - wasn't intimating it was a dump (it isn't), just that it's not *quite* as nice.

 

[pt_mad]

The short answer to your first question is that they don't but for many years now parental choice has been important in school allocation, and rightly so. Throughout the country thousands of children travel many miles away from their neighbourhood school, sometimes passing others en route to attend a school that their parents believe will best meet their needs. Sometimes this may be because of Ofsted judgements, sometimes for a specialism, sometimes on social grounds, sometimes based upon snobbery and so on.

What about the poor sods who have to attend the poorly rated schools then? It obviously wouldn't work if the whole of Barrow said ''no I'm not having my kids attend the local poorly rated school, I want them to go over to Ulverston'. Then, where would the Ulverston kids go?

Surely if it's due to choice then making sure adequate transport is arranged for your kids is part of the parents responsibility for sending them out of town when more local school are available?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Surely if it's due to choice then making sure adequate transport is arranged for your kids is part of the parents responsibility for sending them out of town when more local school are available?

There's nothing *inadequate* about it in the minds of anyone other than the school.

 

[whhistle]

And as if by magic, the Daily Fail has provided more evidence...

Sorry, but I can never take people who do this seriously.
Like people who constantly call it Network Fail.
Come on, what are we? 10 years old?


Seems like this thread has run it's course.

 

[IanXC]

It seems like the school has admitted that it's the financial pressures causing more concern. Northern said that they couldn't move the service back without skipping all stations between Ulverston and Lancaster.

Interesting to read about 'a member of staff to encourage students not to go to town'...



http://www.nwemail.co.uk/news/ulver...sands-537f9edb-5650-4771-93f0-147f70b12ecf-ds

Emma Corkill, a parent governor for UVHS at the meeting worried children would miss the train during a mad rush at the end of the day.

She said: "How are they going to get up to 259 children on a train from a practical point of view? They all have to buy tickets or show their passes to get on the train."

It really sounds like this meeting was incredibly well informed doesn't it.

 

[Darandio]

Come on, what are we? 10 years old?

Some on here are, aren't they?

Seems like this thread has run it's course.

Thankfully you aren't in charge.

I'm keen to continue to see updates to this thread about how it all pans out.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It really sounds like this meeting was incredibly well informed doesn't it.

She really needs to take a trip to Bank in the evening rush if she thinks that isn't time to get about 250 people on a train. And inform herself on the concept of a "return ticket". Any kid who is buying a single on the way back is either going to be in the small minority of kids who get a different mode of transport to school than back from it, or is engaging in casual fare-dodging and hoping they will get away with one way or another so they can spend their fare on sweets (this was incredibly common practice when I was a kid despite Merseyrail ticket office staff performing barrier checks on most trains back then). This is easily solved by pointing out how much cheaper season tickets are and how good they are for avoiding the kids spending it on sweets instead

As for getting to the station, Google Maps has it down as 0.3 miles / 5 minutes. My old school (Ormskirk Grammar) to Ormskirk station is also 0.3 miles but 7 minutes (due to more roads to cross, I guess). We finished school at 15:25, and anyone who wanted to easily made the 15:40 Merseyrail with several minutes to spare including purchasing a ticket if they needed to (I sometimes used to walk in (downhill) and get the train back (uphill), and then there were the fare dodgers as noted above).

 

[ShwervinMervin]

"Safeguarding issue"? What a load of wibble. I regularly used to arrive at school before 8am when we started at 9, used to sit chatting with my mates.

Aye, I still do that now xD

 

[Pete_uk]

So, have any kids rioted yet? Any been kidnapped?