Saturday 9 October 2010

Grooming? Say it with Biscuits!

In a stunning example of Golgafrinchanism and sheer blessed stupidity a 'Catering Supervisor' (AKA 'Dinner Lady') working in Northern Ireland was cautioned that giving a child a biscuit could be construed as 'grooming'

Apparently, a child asked for a biscuit and the woman in question asked a colleague to let the child have one and this constitutes 'grooming'! Better still, Oddly, the child in question is a member of the woman's family and so it was not just grooming but was potential incestuous too. Obviously someone missed an opportunity to add icing to the biscuit there!

After three meetings with senior teaching staff (and the prospect of a fourth looming) the woman resigned.

Now, two years after the incident it has finally been laid to rest and the LEA (local education authority) has been told to apologise for its handling of the whole incident. Of course this will do nothing to remedy the fact that the woman has faced, "Gossip and rumours," over the past two years and has been left with a "Shadow hanging over her!.

Still, she's returned to the school and the LEA have apologised. Of course, there's nothing on the records about the Principal and Vice-Principal issuing an apology (and considering one of the one-to-one interviews with one of them was a 'one-to-one' grilling, that saddens me.

To make matters worse, the LEA say that there was never a question of this being a child protection issue. So what on earth was it them? A clash of personalities, victimisation, harassment?

I don't know

But, I think some involved here deserve to receive the, 'You're a Golgafrincham Award', because:

"You're a load of useless, bloody loonies!"

And we entrust the education of youngers to people who can't use common sense, excercise a little logic to resolve a simple incident without help from the grown-ups. Heaven help us!

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