St James, Past and Present

Discussion of the children's schools in the UK.
Alban
Posts: 271
Joined: Wed Feb 18, 2004 11:23 am
Location: London

St James, Past and Present

Postby Alban » Thu Feb 23, 2006 1:03 am

As there seems to be a sudden influx of people jumping to the defence of the current St James School, I thought it would be a good idea to dedicate a thread to the subject and in doing so maybe explode a few myths.

Firstly, having been with this board from the beginning, I think I can safely say that the majority of people here are not trying to harm the current St James Schools, let alone the children in them. There are of course exceptions to this, but on the whole the overriding desire is for recognition of what went on before and for the relevant people to take responsibility for what did happen. At this point I feel that the surface has been scratched of the former and we are still waiting for the latter.

The next question I have to ask myself is what do these current (or recently ex) pupils feel they have to protect. Largely they have accepted the findings of the inquiry but have stated that the current schools are no mirror of the past. If this is the case then they should not be particularly attached to the governors who were responsible for the past misconduct. Also, being the fine up-standing examples of a good education that they are, they would of course endorse people taking responsibilities for their actions. If St James were to completely replace the governors, would the schools suffer - I think not. Indeed they may benefit from some non-ses governance from people who have experience running other schools.

Which leads me on to the SES. Again the vociferous and remarkably co-ordinated trio are keen to distance themselves and St James from the SES cult, claiming that it is not a part of their lives. In which case they should not have any great problem removing the SES influence over the St James curriculum. Then at least the school could be completely open about it's affiliations (assuming it replaces the SES with a more widely recognised faith).

As we know, there are a few current teachers left who were part of the cycle of abuse that went on in those early days. Many schools will lose more teachers than that in a term and continue with business as usual, so surely the three musketeers are not worried about that.

So using Matthew's open letter as the yardstick, I don't think there is anything being asked for by the majority that would adversely affect the schools.

The only reason for anyone to feel threatened by what is being said on these boards is if they felt that in removing the SES or the governors from the schools, you would essentially be removing the schools fabric and they would collapse in a heap around us all. So, I could understand if the governors and approximately 70-80% of the teaching staff felt under attack because they have aligned themselves to the SES indoctrination...but as for the worldly-wise youngsters - they only stand to gain more improvements to their beloved school.

So how about it guys...what are you worried about?

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