The Bishop of Norwich in England has warned against “statist tendencies” in a Government plan for childhood.Children’s secretary Ed Balls launched the Children’s Plan, which is sub-titled Building Brighter Futures, last year and the House of Lords debated its provisions on Thursday, May 8.
The Rt Rev Graham James broadly welcomed the plan and told peers: “One refreshing feature of the Children’s Plan is that it says clearly that parents and families — not Governments — bring up children.
“That this might need to be said at all would have seemed ludicrous once, but at least we can be grateful for it now. It puts the rest of the plan, which I welcome, in perspective.”
But he described a social contract between parents and schools, which is outlined in the plan, as “a prescriptive intervention”.
Bishop James said it was crucial that children and young people were consulted as “what worries children may not be self-evident to parents and teachers”. He said the Good Childhood Inquiry -- which is being carried out by the Children’s Society -- showed that a third of 2,500 children said their biggest worry about school was bullying.
“That seems a very significant statistic for us to consider -- that a third of our children are scared of being bullied in school,” he told peers. “So any consultation on the new relationship between parents and schools must include children and young people themselves.
“I welcome the talk in the Children’s Plan of developing a family policy for the 21st century -- the introduction of a personal parent-held record from birth to age 11 seems emphatic in its symbolism of the emphasis on parents raising children, but there are still a few statist tendencies around, which I hope the Government will endeavour to limit.”
He said one of the key themes from evidence submitted to the Good Childhood Inquiry was the need to develop personal and social skills and that was one of the main aims of the Children’s Plan.
Bishop James told peers: “I hope that this will be recognised in the review of the primary curriculum, since those early years in school are crucial for later achievement and confidence.
"The development of good communication skills is fundamental and the poverty deficit is not always one of parental income, it can be of parental engagement. “Put simply, children whose parents do not converse with them, or children who are shouted at or are limited to passive receiving in front of a television or computer screen, are not well placed in our educational system. That is why the extended schools agenda is so valuable.”
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