NANNY STATE

Thanks for your informative article on the Children and Young People Act [Viewpoint, July 2015]. As a parent, I want my children’s headteacher to have the time and resources to create a safe and trusting atmosphere where children feel able to approach teachers if they’re unhappy and staff know pupils well enough that they get a gut feeling if something is going wrong. It’s hard work to build such an environment. It requires time to walk around the school, developing personal relationships with all teachers and children, as well as parents, of course. It does not involve spending hours each week going through cc’d reports from the health board, social work and heaven knows who else (I don’t know who else, I’m just a parent).

The Scottish Government promised to fund all costs incurred by local authorities with implementing named person provision. But when you read closely, this only applies to training and system set-up costs, not ongoing administration. I think the increased administrative burden is an unfair imposition on our schools, especially given the 5% cut in education spending we’ve seen in Scotland since 2010. Schools, after all, should be places of learning, not pointless duplication of paperwork.

We’ve just had our third child. With the first two I saw the health visitor for vaccinations and if I had any concerns. Now (since GIRFEC) she wants to see me weekly. Really? This is my third child, I know what I’m doing now and I’d rather spend my maternity leave playing with my children than answering questions about where the baby sleeps. The health visitor is a lovely person and a good nurse, but I think her resources would be better used on first-time mothers or struggling families who actually need support. Oh dear, I told her the baby sleeps in my bed. Maybe I’m being watched!

Sian Curley, Sutherland