ESC - DUTY OF CARE or DUTY OF COVER-UP?

What's been happening to your child at school today?

 

Regular readers of the Bald Truth will recall me lifting the lid on the suppressed Education, Sport & Culture department story of a child reportedly being 'shot in the face' by a teacher at Le Rocquier School with a starting pistol. The Minister was, it must be said, very economic and - certainly to most people I talked to who approached me afterwards - rather defensive about the revelation.

 

Was this response just a concern at there being a somewhat  belated  police investigation that was now going on? Well, with my initial contact on the subject coming from direct within the school itself the Bald Truth Jersey now brings you that suppressed story as told to me DIRECT from the lips of the very concerned mother - let's call her Mrs X - of the injured pupil.

The events she describes it has to be said paint a truly mind-boggling and deeply worrying picture.

 

Now one must acknowledge straightaway - I was obviously not there in person myself. This is simply what she has described to me. Yet read through what she told me for yourself and then ask: should this disturbing incident be allowed to be quietly swept under the ESC carpet for fear of denting the all important Establishment Jersey image?  The answer just has to be a resounding 'no'.

 

Where might a teacher justifiably need a starting pistol within a school?

 

When I was first contacted by another third party concerned about the above incident I understandably assumed that what had transpired must have been some kind of freakish accident during a school athletics session; the gun going off accidentally and injuring a pupil by pure chance.

 

After all, not only having formerly been a professional educator and - in the dark and distant past - a pretty good athlete myself; even representing my home island at football I was pretty clear that starting pistols and athletics; perhaps some competitive swimming now and again are just about the only things within 'at school' activities that go together. Yet on being contacted by the injured pupil's mother my assumptions were to be proved well and truly wrong.

'I'm going to shoot Pupil X in the face...'

According to Mrs X's statement her son was not taking place in an outside session of athletics at all - he was simply participating in a game of 5-A-Side football within a sports hall! 

As football is obviously controlled by nothing more than a referee's whistle the first question has to be: what the hell was a potentially dangerous object like a starting pistol being utilised for? Indeed. what on earth would even possess a teacher to risk walking around within a school building carrying such a weapon when its use was so clearly wholly unnecessary?

Could this be  the result of a staggeringly misguided act of bravado; or horsing around? The fact is no matter how much one reflects upon the matter a rational explanation seems all but impossible to find. Yet if the mother of Pupil X is correct in what she says - and I can see no reason at all why a parent would wish to lie - this incident  then takes on an even more disturbing hue.

According to Mrs X the teacher in question (I do know the identity but will certainly not reveal this whilst an official inquiry is going on) actually raised the pistol and pointed it at her son who apparently initially had his back to the teacher. She then further states that the words: 'I'm going to shoot Pupil X in the face!' were spoken. A stupid, misguided joke surely? Yet as her teenage son then turned Mrs X alleges the gun was then fired.

This is what you do NOT do after an on premises incident...

 

 In the event of such an incident taking place - here a pupil's eyes being likely to be damaged by the discharge even if the pistol in question was not one of the older, more dangerous weapons involving projectiles - a qualified First Aider should be taking charge; at the same time emergency services should immediately be called; and the school Headmaster must be informed. they in turn would then have to notify the department. Last but not least the child's parent or guardian would have to be contacted.

 

All ESC staff should and would know this. Wouldn't they? I ask because what happened then according to Mrs X bares little resemblance to what I illustrate above. For according to the pupil's mother her son states that he was hurried off to the showers by the teacher who had wielded the pistol; here attempts were made to wash out and soothe his eyes.

 

From here, however, procedure appears to have gone decidedly pear-shaped.

• The emergency services were never called
• The parent - Mrs X - was not even contacted at any point - by anyone from ESC
• The injured pupil was instead kept on at school to the end of the school day. This also being just ONE day before he was due to sit his first important and obviously stressful exam!

All pretty appalling if this is as Mrs X tells it. Yet it actually gets even worse. According to this ordinary mum the only way she finally came to learn of all of this was when her son returned home after school with badly bloodshot eyes! horrified she then had to take her son down to the hospital herself. And when she contacted the school there she states that there was allegedly further shocks in store.

 

• The Le Rocquier Headmaster had apparently been told nothing of the event
• The teacher involved had allegedly not reported the incident to anyone
• The shooting incident had, it transpires, also actually taken place at only the SECOND session of the day!

 

Yet what had this teacher allegedly done following this truly mind-boggling incident?

 

According to what Mrs X claims; upon her son returning to class with the teacher following the attempt to wash out his eyes he allegedly stated to the class words to the effect of: 'No one must tell anyone about this - or I'll get the sack!' Can this really be an accurate account of what happened?

 

It seems almost too incredible and disturbing for words.

 

And this essentially leads us to why I decided to report what Mrs X has told me having contacted me after my question to the ESC Minister; lay out the story for you the wider public on the Bald Truth. For as if this lady had not had enough of a shock following this bizarre chain of events; even though a police investigation was eventually set in place, a short time ago she was to open correspondence from Le Rocquier - where she also has another child.

 

Reading this Mrs X was - understandably in my view - shocked to read that although the teacher involved was now suspended and a Police inquiry under way the man had already been allocated a class for the following September!

 

Insensitive? Negligent? Or as the mother of Pupil X feels: deeply worrying as to whether this investigation will be nothing more than the tick-box 'white wash' investigation that the Jersey Establishment does so well? And all, of course, going on behind closed doors.  it is due to these concerns that I state without apology - such incidents must not be allowed to be hushed up; kept from the public for fear of 'reputations' being damaged.

 

States Members, the public and most importantly the mother of Pupil X need answers and assurances. We also need to know that if anything less than 100% happy with what she is eventually told she - and parents generally MUST have a wholly independent authority that can be turned to. For  a 'Duty of Care' must mean just that.

 

Keep the Faith.