Why isn't the Children's Commissioner interested in abuse of independent school kids?
I know it's not the hottest topic in child abuse this week...but it still matters. The Children's Commissioner has a statutory duty to be non-partisan and to represent ALL children.
In a recent Times article, the Education Secretary says “she had received abuse” about the Education Tax “from people who really should know better”, with some calling her “a bitch” and “a harridan”. How awful for her. Personally, I try to avoiding using such terms openly to describe somebody in public life.
What I am going to go with is “bully”, and I’ll come back to that another time.
I wonder what she and the Children’s Commissioner think of the far worse online abuse, incitements to bullying and actual real-world abuse handed out in bucketfuls, to families like mine and to our children. Children who do not benefit, like her, from a security detail. Families who are not the architects, like her, but the victims of this cruel situation. Families at whom Phillipson took aim with “that tweet” depicting “those schools” against “our children”, making out that all the issues with (some) state schools are the zero-sum sole responsibility of (all) independent schools, rather than a matter for society more broadly.
I wonder, because I don’t know, because despite repeated referrals to the Children’s Commissioner, I and the Education Not Taxation campaign have yet to receive even an acknowledgement.
Abuse, incitement, ghastliness
Allison Pearson’s Telegraph article features just a few of hundreds of examples. I’m not sure it helps our cause much to call Phillipson "a thin-skinned harpy”, but the following comment on X is surely much more shocking, frightening and (being an incitement) probably criminal.
“Can you imagine the bullying some private school kids will get when they must go [in] to new state schools? A good hiding never hurt anyone, it’ll toughen them up!”
Here’s a stack more. I did feature them in a thread on X, but Elon hid the lot at about the time of the Allison Pearson article. It’s unpleasant reading, but I think important to keep this stuff on the record.
“I’d be a real Nazi and abolish them all. What a bunch of a%$eholes”
“We’re nationalising your kids….who cares if those kids don’t reach max potential, as long as our averages are up”.
“A wonderful sight to behold as the 20% VAT these horrible toff bastards are now having to pay to send their inbred offspring to private school hahahaha”
As a small aside, I’m very close to being a free-speech absolutist. I think it’s good for society to see grotesque opinions being expressed, and that modern technology can help us understand if there’s a pattern (such as a link between such hateful speech and pronouncements by Bridget Phillipson), or if these opinions are widespread.
But I also recognise there are laws about inciting violence, and also that the progressive left isn’t shy of declaring that verbal abuse is a form of violence, where mental and physical scars are of equal concern, so perhaps it’s for the best that the original thread was removed.
UNCRC
There’s a binding obligation on the Government to make the interests of children “a primary consideration” in all matters of public policy. This stems from the United Nations Convention of Rights of a Child (UNCRC) Article 3. That obligation is embodied in UK law via the Children Act and the office of the Children’s Commissioner, whose homepage couldn’t be clearer:
“As Children’s Commissioner it is my duty to promote and protect the rights of all children”
All children. Not state-educated children, 93% of children. Not “children my boss the Education Secretary claims to care about”.
All children. So I asked the Children’s Commissioner to check this situation out here on Oct 21st 2024 and followed up with an email and a submission on her website. Various other parents joined in for example on Nov 8th, Nov 14th, Nov 24th, Dec 5th; several have made direct contact.
So what’s she up to?
Well, since the 2024 election:
Here she is, saying Year 5 and Year 6 children want motherhood-and-apple-pie at taxpayers’ expense, per Labour’s policy
Here, saying every SEN child should have joined-up care and education at taxpayers’ expense, per Labour’s policy; here, welcoming the Budget award of money for SEN in the state system, without mention of the Education Tax or its effect on SEN in the private sector, or the total silence on future opportunities for the private sector to support SEN provision.
Here, supporting Labour’s policy to prevent a recurrence of the Sara Sharif tragedy via more regulation and scrutiny of homeschooling, rather than by more stringent race-blind application of existing protocols
Here, on mental and physical health, welcoming Labour’s policy of spending more money
Here, hanging out with Stephen Morgan MP (Lab) to talk about how the Government must “create a child-centric education system”, in line with Labour policy and union demands.
“Great to meet Secretary of State @bphillipsonMP today to discuss key issues affecting children - including safeguarding, additional needs and upholding children’s rights wherever they are. Such a privilege to take children’s voices to a Minister so keen to hear them.”
Gushing stuff. It’s a great big Labour love-in.
So what?
I’m not saying all the above is bad. I’m not objecting to her speaking to children directly (that’s specified as part of her job), I’m fine with the advocacy for SEN. It’s just….she’s not supposed to be regurgitating government policy. She’s supposed to be politically independent and to advocate for all children, whose needs and wants are varied and complicated.
Am I being too cynical to think the Children’s Commissioner is busy as a bee putting her office’s resources at the disposal of the Education Secretary, in terms that are a bit too consistently cosy to support her claim to be on the side of all children. I mean, to read her output, you wonder….do all children really say these exact same things? Is there no room in her great big surveys and consultations for children who
want to reduce the burden of taxes on their families, or
worry that the knowledge-led education reforms of the Conservatives are at risk from Becky Francis, or
worry about bad behaviour being tolerated in their schools, or
question whether a government fixated on public sector pay rises, climate/slavery reparations, and carbon capture gobbledegook really has their best interests at heart, or
think an adult-led curriculum might be more conducive to a successful future than a child-centric one, or
think asking 9 year-olds if they want world peace etc. is unlikely to generate significant insights, given such children aren’t known for their grasp of systems thinking, the limitations of government, or opportunity cost.
I know a bunch of children that do hold these views; and I also know how easy it is as an adult “facilitating” these sorts of conversations to bring forward any recommendations and soundbites they like, and to filter out those they don’t like, or that their boss the Education Secretary doesn’t like.
Vulnerability and Radio silence
And, back to the point. The Children’s Commissioner is explicitly tasked to be a voice for all children with particular regard to vulnerable children.
There’s a loose (but good) definition of vulnerability, which is “any child at greater risk of experiencing physical or emotional harm and/ or experiencing poor outcomes because of one or more factors in their lives”. Special Educational Needs (SEN) are typically regarded as a factor. In the better literature, it’s explicitly made clear that while poverty can be a factor, it is not a necessary one; victims of bullying can be vulnerable, as can children from any background who suffer an Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE).
I suggest that any child whose schooling plans are forced to change at short notice against their parents’ can become vulnerable; especially if they have SEN; especially given the toxic threats and abuse detailed earlier on; and especially if they have prior experience of being bullied in state schools. So
Where’s her concern for children whose education is being shafted by the manner, tone and timing of the Education Tax, particularly those forced to switch schools mid-year and mid-exam cycle?
Where’s her response to the safeguarding concern regarding ~600k children in independent schools, of which ~108k have special educational needs, and the 37k that the Government happily expects to see displaced into the state sector?
Where’s her independent scrutiny of the Government’s assumption that children can expect “a warm welcome” in state school, given the toxic debate that has been propagated by, for example, the misleading tax break lingo and equally misleading stereotypes of “Eton, millionaires, the richest in our society?”
Perhaps she’s working on it. I’m not holding my breath.
The problem with all of this is that the UK has descended into a "crabs in a bucket" mentality in relation to the perception of success.
Whats scary is that Labour is now applying this mentality to children, by effectively saying you cannot succeed individually unless everybody else is better off as well.
Those of us with expertise in financial and economic modelling understand full well the gaslighting that has been going on in regrds to the often touted IFS Report.
Its fairly obvious that the VAT add-on will not raise any real amount of funds (less than £0.5bn), so i suspect they will be hiding that number inside the increases they are applying to the education budget. They will very likely stall and obfuscate over the next few years about the actual effect of the VAT increase on revenues.
We decided to send our child abroad for private education because I don't see Labour being objective about any of this. For them, this is clearly a red meat policy that they are using to keep their base happy.
There will be a lot of damage on the ground (specially SEN) but with the current climate being promoted and encouraged by Labour, any complaints will fall on deaf ears in a clear race to the bottom.