Schools are far more than mere exam factories. Across the UK, teachers in 32,000 schools and colleges care for children on over half the days in any given year. Or we did until the lockdown in March 2020. Since then, children have missed the best part of two full terms. And while they were out of our sight, some were at risk. Six year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, for example, may have been rescued from the terrible abuse he suffered had his teachers been able to see him every day.
But while most children have returned to class now that Covid restrictions are ending, some are still absent. News of anecdotal cases circulate within the profession. A colleague tells me that two sisters in her school never returned. The girls – both teenagers – have been kept at home, apparently to protect vulnerable adults who are shielding in their household.
It was therefore no surprise to hear Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner for England, suggest that perhaps 80,000 to 100,000 children are now missing from school registers. According to the commissioner, these children ‘fell off the radar’ during lockdown and have never returned to class. Remarkably, several local authorities do not know how many children have been impacted by this epidemic of missing children.
The impact on those young people should not be understated. In a society that has made child safeguarding into an industry and wrapped it up in paperwork and red tape, those children are now missing out on the most basic protection of all: the eyes and ears of the community.
We have known that since the dawn of time that people are less likely to get up to no good if they are being watched.
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