School staff, Ruth Kelly and List 99 cont...

I continue to be amazed at the ongoing story that continues to have an impact on the young people I work with. If a boy of 17 has sex with his 15 year and 10 months old girlfriend, he can get a caution that will bar him from working in a school in later life. And with the knowledge that fellow pupils are more likely to sexually assault a young person at school than teaching staff, this story is set to run and run with complicated twists thrown in along the way.

I'm glad to hear that an independant panel headed by former chief executive of children's charity Barnardo's, Sir Roger Singleton will determine if there are to be exceptions to the ban. But there's no denying it will be hard. As the news report above states:

One secondary school teacher said one of her pupils was placed on the register at the age of nine for raping his cousin.

The teacher said: "As he had been sexually abused himself and exposed to pornography at a very young age, it was possible to feel some pity for him - until he carried out three sexual assaults on Year Seven girls that year."