C.E. Jottings

Ex-Rotherham & Sheffield Children's Director Sonia Sharp quits role in Australia

The BBC is reporting that Sonia Sharp has quite her job in Australia. As head of children's services in Rotherham from 2005-2008, she preceded Joyce Thacker, who resigned in September after weeks of pressure following the publication of the Jay Report that revealed the level of abuse of mainly young girls in Rotherham and the failure of the 'safeguarding' services to prevent it. From Rotherham, Sonia Sharp came to Sheffield, leaving for the post in Victoria, Australia in 2012. See... Read more →

The power of the internet. An awful news story. How should one respond?

The power of the internet? The awfulness of a near-local news story of the organised abuse of children? How should one respond? As I begin writing this at 07.15am, this blog has had 47 visitors in the past 8 hours and 45 minutes, according to the Feedjit 'Live Traffic Feed'. 42 of these visited just one particular post from May 2012: "Belated farewell to Dr Sonia Sharp - heading down under to Victoria." These 42 visitors come from across the... Read more →

Physical contact between pupils and conductors

Physical contact between pupils and conductors is inevitable in conductive education settings. Equally inevitable are the difficulties likely to arise from the perceptions of 'safeguarding' vigilantes. If such persons are Ofsted Inspectors, then the consequences can potentially be severe. Such attitudes encourage schools to adopt, in practice, informally or formally, policies of no contact. A moment or so ago, I came across by chance a debate on this very matter in the House of Lords on 11 July 2011 during... Read more →

Parent of a disabled child? Read this. Weep. Get angry. Cheer for Mom.

The sentence that gets me is "The teacher seems unconvinced of this notion." Just read it. And I defy you not to be moved. Caleigh's Corner Days 2-3 Thanks to Glenda Watson Hyatt (@GlendaWH) for pointing it out. Oh - and while I'm still angry after reading about Caleigh, don't ask me about Safeguarding Read more →

May I recommend ... edyourself.org

"Ed Yourself" is the website of Home Education consultant Fiona Nicholson (who, by the way, tweets as @edyourself). She deals with all policy matters of concern, obviously, to home educators (in England) - but that often has a much wider relevance. Just now I was alerted via twitter to Fiona's posting on the revisions to Ofsted's inspection of children's services - and to the questions that remain. There are other useful posts, too, on the same page, such as her... Read more →

Why Eton fives and Westminster School matter to Conductive Education

If I were to tell you that Giles Coren, the Sunday Times columnist and food critic, may no longer be able to play Eton fives at Westminster School, you might well wonder what the sporting pastime of a former pupil of one of the UK's top private schools has to do with conductive education. If I suggested that you should be concerned, you might well suspect that I had, as has often been rumoured, finally flipped. But you would be... Read more →