Telford & Wrekin Council Watch - Children Sign Unfair contracts

Children Sign Unfair contracts

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Written by John Franklyn

Saturday, 26 April 2008

Education within Telford and Wrekin has taken a rather sadistic twist and is entering into the realm of complete unfairness.

A number of children who attend the Sutherland School in Trench say they were made to sign an “Acceptable Behaviour Contract” on Friday on 25^th April 2008.

There are a number of concerns, as at least one of the children expected to sign this contract has special educational needs with the main concern being, the Contract has been drawn up with out parental knowledge and the children have been made to sign the contract without their parents being present.

The decision to draw up the Contract was taken by the Head of year 9, Ms Harris who had a member of the ITP staff present and a CSO.

A number of the children have said they were made to sign the contract and believed the CSO would arrest them if they didn’t or they would face exclusion from mainstream education if they did not sign the contract.

It is said that more children are to sign this unfair and possibly illegal contract on Monday 28^th April 2008.

Ms Harris, head of year 9 has been under investigation recently and is not allowed to deal with a number of children at The Sutherland School after parents made complaints about her conduct.

Is it any wonder why?

The Parent Governors of the Sutherland School include Cllr Keith Austin and Cllr Clive Mason.

Do these Councillors consider these contracts to be fair, especially when they could’ve been signed under considerable duress and do these contracts form part of Council and / or School Policy?

Do these Councillors consider it fair that children are made to sign contracts without the knowledge and representation of their parents?

It is unfortunate that the Sutherland do not have any consistency with regards the treatment of their pupils and Ms Harris is known to have her favourites whilst harbouring grudges against some pupils.

Ms Harris, Head Teacher Mr Wall and other staff were not available for comment on Friday.

Comments

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RonPlenderleith

|Administrator |2008-04-26 20:55:14

Goodness gracious. If this is proved to be true it is a disgrace.

I would wonder what legal authourity the contract has.

Roger

|Registered |2008-04-27 11:38:22

by the way they did it that is "Intimidation" and "Bullying" and if it was my child I would be taking legal action against the teacher, and at least the head master.

This is just bloody stupid, and these teachers want more pay, they obviously have not got enough to to do than frighten children. Children can be difficult I know, mine were little buggers, but we managed them without frightening the living daylights out of them or reverting to such measures., my eldest works for the police my youngest is a shop manager. So my message to Ms Harris if you cant do the job properly get the hell out.

Why am I not surprised that Labour Councillors are on the board of governors of this school. It is a sad day that a once proud party has over the last decade has lost respect of the community and rightly or wrongly this will be seen as another example of just that.

ajcobbler

|SAdministrator |2008-04-28 19:30:48

It is incredible that this has happened. As a former social worker I am amazed that it was thought acceptable to get minors to sign such a contract.If a police support officer was present it makes matters worse.

I am not entirely surprised having had considerable experience of idiots in post in teaching,social work and in the probation service. I have recently been the victim of appalling police incompetence as well.

As to councillors it should come as no surprise that many of them are completely stupid and ill educated .Some years ago I was project director for a daft unemployment scheme on the welsh coast.Apart from much else that was wrong there was a problem with my contract.

Unable to cope with my questions the local tafia of the labour party threatened me with a charge of gross misconduct if I did not sign the conditions of service,this despite the fact that Ihad continued to work despite my disagreement. I had to tell the numpties that it is illegal to compel an employee to sign a condition of service and that as their director I would have caused them problems if I had forced other employees to do so. I left soon after,Cobbler

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