British Values and Radicalisation

Liming the potato bed

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11 October 2015 at 10:46

On Friday afternoons Ferretfingers attends the Adult Learning Alliance's Allotment Gardening course at a Community Centre.  I am his enabler, driving him there and back and hanging around 'in case there are any problems'.  Which means I sit nearby reading, crocheting or writing a letter, because part of the point is to get him to do things rather than say, pathetically, "Mummy help".

The other men in the group range in age from early twenties to forties.  All are learning disabled, except for Russell who is so severely physically disabled the speech he has is unintelligible.  All bar Raymond require an enabler to get them safely there to 'access' the course.

The tutor is required to incorporate British Values and Radicalisation into the curriculum.

Loud laughter from the enablers when this was announced.

Now call me disableist (and I know we say Ferretfingers is as cunning as a bag of rats) but I'm having trouble trying to work out the likelihood of this group plotting the overthrow of Western Civilization.

You do have to wonder at the mentality of the education/council/Ofsted bureaucrats that pass down these sorts of tick-box one-size-fits-all requirements to people who actually do the work.

Does nobody at management level have the common sense to say "Oh for goodness sake let’s get off this daft bandwagon"?

And while we're at it…

When in the 70s/80s/90s the IRA were bombing bits of Britain I didn't notice people going around Catholic schools, Kilburn, Liverpool, Glasgow and other heavily Irish areas looking for 'radicalised young people' and requiring educators to include British Values in the curriculum.  Maybe then the powers that be realised it would create more problems than it solved.

Mrs Lasagne  Room for thought Ben.  Makes you wonder xxx