The RCM Woodhouse Centre has been one of our consistent supporters since we launched in early 2008, and I was really pleased to meet the students and graduates, not least those who are already using our services to find work.

As well as insightful presentations given by the Incorporated Society of Musicians (ISM), the Musicians Answering Service (MAS) and others, four RCM alumni came to open a window on their current careers.

So, how does a musician become successful in today’s increasingly harsh economic climate?

From the four alumni presentations, two important lessons stood out for me:

• don’t limit your possibilities with a narrow view of success. As a musician, having a rigid idea of what success means for you is almost a recipe for disaster. All four RCM alumni demonstrated an openness to new challenges, and welcomed opportunities that were perhaps initially only in their peripheral vision. Despite the private ambitions they nurture, they haven’t closed their eyes to the bigger picture. Phillip Neil Martin, one of the speakers, demonstrates what’s possible: according to the PRS website, his work ‘crosses the divide from experimental concert music, electronics and installations to fashion, film and new technology, concept and artistic direction, regularly collaborating with fashion designers, filmmakers, architects, artists and dancers’.
• become an educator to complete the circle. Al Mobbs, one of the other contributing alumni, is a bassist, writer, producer, manager and label boss. But like his fellow presenters, he also put strong emphasis on teaching, education outreach and ‘giving something back’. The music business is a two-way street, and all four speakers acknowledged the phenomenon of planting seeds which will one day grow into opportunities. Not only does teaching keep you part of the community, it keeps you sharp and learning all the time from your pupils.

Looked at in this light, The Tutor Pages is another opportunity for musicians to get their names and their skills out there. It’s another chance to showcase  talent, and to become receptive to opportunities that wouldn’t otherwise exist. And with recent improvements allowing tutors to upload music and video files (see an example here), there’s never been a better time to sign up.

(Many thanks to Howard Felton and to Diana Roberts for organising this event, and to Maria Marchant and Robin Ashwell of the Sacconi Quartet who also gave talks).

The confusion will cause a major headache for organisations which have been preparing for the July kick-off of the scheme.

Self-employed private tutors, for whom the VBS is not a statutory requirement, will be no doubt be watching the ensuing chaos with a sense of relief that they don’t need to get involved. Other tutors won’t be so lucky: they’ll still be affected because of their employment by schools or other so-called Regulated Activity Providers (RAPs).

The good thing is, the information in our recent interim statement on private tuition and the VBS still holds true.

We therefore urge all parents, tutors and others concerned about child protection in the private tuition industry to familiarize themselves with the issues by reading it at:

http://www.thetutorpages.com/media-room/june-2010-child-protection-interim-statement.pdf

Find it on The Tutor Pages website under our Media Room, or at the following link:

http://www.thetutorpages.com/media-room/june-2010-child-protection-interim-statement.pdf

We urge all parents, tutors and anyone else involved in private tuition to read it. We hope that our perspective will be informative and that it will encourage debate on the topic (soon we’ll also have a forum on The Tutor Pages so you can voice your comments too).

Child protection is a complex area, and the more you look at it, the more you realise that what is perceived as helpful may not actually be so.

The statement should help clarify the issues for those parents and tutors who are no doubt concerned or confused about this whole area.

Finally, we’ve no idea yet what the new government is going to do about the VBS scheme, so much of this information may change.

Watch this space!

It also mentions an academic research project we’re in the intial stages of colloborating with on this subject.

Any feedback v welcome!

Henry

The legal challenge also follows concerns that the VBS would affect nurses’ relationships at work, making them “overly cautious about comforting or being left alone with patients”. Howard Catton of the RCN said: “Nurses might be scared something as simple as putting a hand on a patient’s arm will be misinterpreted. Or they could become more conscious about talking to patients on their own. If people are acting in a defensive way it might hold back their practice.”

The VBS was set up by the last government to help prevent unsuitable people from working with children and vulnerable adults, and has caused controversy right across the professional and voluntary sectors where the welfare of children and vulnerable adults is paramount.

As the scheme stands, private tutors are not obliged by law to register with the VBS because tutoring is a private arrangement.

In a separate interview with Children & Young People Now, Tim Loughton, the new minister in charge of children’s social care and young people’s services, announced that the government is launching a review of the VBS and the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) to be headed by Professor Eileen Munro. “We’ll be making announcements very shortly about the whole future of the vetting and barring system,” Loughton added.

The coalition agreement published on 20 May 2010 stated “We will review the criminal records and vetting and barring regime and scale it back to common sense levels” (p.20).

No further information is available at this stage, though for an up-to-date analysis read my post on Tuesday.

Along with scrapping ID cards, the most significant scheme to be dismantled will be the ContactPoint Database which was to hold the details of of 11 million under-18s. However, there has been no mention of the controversial Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) which was designed to prevent unsuitable adults working with children and vulnerable adults.

Will this scheme also be up for political reform?

Before the election, the Conservative Party promised to “scale back” the VBS to “common sense levels”. But we have no indication to date of what shape that reform might take.

Meanwhile thousands of organisations up and down the country are only just starting to get to grips with what the VBS means for them. Last week the Incorporated Society of Musicians (ISM) and the Association of British Orchestras (ABO) ran a superb seminar on the VBS and the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) which is administering the Scheme. Yvonne Spencer and Con Alexander of Veale Wasbrough Vizards must be commended for their clarity and patience in explaining the very complex issues which surround the implementation of the Scheme.

Admitting that the VBS is difficult even for lawyers in this field, it was suggested that with the change of government came a chance for organisations to make representations to try to simplify the system.

So how are organisations coping so far?

The overwhelming impression I had from the seminar was that accurate interpretation of regulated activity (i.e. who must join the ISA database) was so confusing that organisations would probably simply take a belt and braces approach and sign everyone they could up to the Scheme. This is despite the costs involved. To give a concrete example, a musician playing in a professional British orchestra would probably be compelled to sign up, because he or she may at some point have ‘frequent’ or ‘intensive’ contact with children during a community outreach programme.

Extraordinary details (at least to me) came to light during the seminar. For example, how, even with the ISA Scheme in place, performing an Enhanced CRB check on a new member of staff is currently a requirement (even Sir Roger Singleton has seen the absurdity of this, and has suggested that this requirement be relaxed). Moreover, with our attention so firmly focussed on the implications of working with children, there was a warning that many are likely to neglect the definition of ‘vulnerable adult’ – which can (amongst countless other things) include a person who is ‘receiving any form of healthcare’! One of the few lighter moments came as one questioner asked whether the £64 ISA registration fee might be tax deductable (well, why not?).

As the details of their statutory obligations begin to sink in, thousands of organisations are having to decide how to orientate themselves in respect of the wider issue of child protection. Not only must they make sure they’re not breaking the law, but they have to decide what other measures might be necessary to demonstrate their commitment to safeguarding and the promotion of child welfare. As far as I am aware, only schools currently have an obligation to put in place child protection policies and procedures, but organisations of all types are increasingly becoming concerned about reputation management. According to Veale Wasbrough Vizards, a safeguarding policy should cover aspects such as: roles and responsibilities; recruitment of staff; safe working practice for staff (including a Code of Conduct); definition and signs of abuse; procedures for reporting concerns; dealing with allegations against staff; and review and monitoring of policy. The Incorporated Society of Musicians’ (ISM) Code of Practice was held up as a very helpful example of good practice in this area.

It might legitimately be asked what relevance all this has to private tutoring when private tutors have no legal obligations to join the VBS? Well, firstly, a large percentage of private tutors will be affected because their work in schools and for other Regulated Activity Providers (RAPs) will mean that they will have to sign up anyway. But secondly, this legislation will have strong repercussions for the society we live in. As the Scheme is rolled out over the coming years, there may be an increased climate of fear surrounding private tuition. Tragically, this attitude would be in denial of all that’s known about the risk of child abuse from teachers and other professionals.  The most comprehensive study that’s ever been conducted into child abuse in the UK reported that, of those children who experienced sexual abuse outside of the family, very few (less than 1%) experienced abuse by professionals in a position of trust, for example from teachers, doctors, social/care workers or religious leaders.

Although the survey results don’t appear to be up yet on their website, eGov monitor covered the story yesterday.

In line with the rules of the VBS, 88% of those questioned thought that vetting should take place where the activity is weekly or more. However, 66% supported vetting where the activity is monthly or more, 66% wanted schools to check authors and other similar visitors to schools, and 61% said that parents involved in school exchanges should also register with the VBS.

Ironically, these are the very areas of the VBS which were scaled back last December amid a storm of protests from parents, teachers and volunteers that the government had gone too far. At the time, the seven main representative organisations for school and college leaders wrote a letter to Ed Balls saying that the newly introduced system was “disproportionate to risk”. The result was a government climbdown involving a reduction in the number of adults who would have to register from around 11 million to 9 million.

It is hard to know what to make of the new Fairplay For Children survey. Jan Cosgrove, its National Secretary, is one of the few outspoken supporters of increasing the scope of the VBS. Sitting firmly on the other side of the fence are campaigners such as Josie Appleton and the Manifesto Club. Personally, I’m impressed by the views of Mark Easton, BBC News’ home editor, who has described the VBS as “a child of moral panic” and “a textbook case of how media hype, political expediency and bureaucratic process lead to conclusions that can later appear disproportionate”.

Last month, we published our own survey which suggested that there was widespread opposition to the VBS among private tutors, for whom signing up is voluntary.

We’re now doing some research into the risk of child abuse within the private tuition context. We’ll be asking questions such as How big is the risk? Is there any evidence that a voluntary system for tutors will actually reduce the risk of abuse, or is it just something good for the tutor’s CV? Could the VBS actually increase the risk of child abuse? John Adams (expert in risk compensation, Emeritus Professor of Geography at University College London and Honorary Member of the Institute of Risk Management) recently raised this spectre in his blog:

Leaving aside the mind-boggling expense and bureaucracy required to perform this feat [introduction of the VBS], its effect is almost certain to be perverse. A CRB check will be seen as an insurance policy; behaviour that might previously have aroused suspicion is now less likely to be questioned because some superior authority has certified the suspect as “safe”.

John Adams states on his website that he is “intrigued by the persistence of attitudes to risks” and laments “disputes about issues for which conclusive evidence is lacking”. Quite. We’re hoping to get some more evidence together on the subject of risk in private tuition, for the benefit of parents, tutors and other interested parties. Watch this space!

As the Guardian reports, our poll shows that support among tutors for the new Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) is currently very weak.

Key findings of The Tutor Pages poll, which surveyed over 500 private academic and music tutors, were:

• 74% of self-employed tutors say they will not sign up for the scheme
• 70% say it is a waste of resources and will be a bureaucratic nightmare to administer
• 71% say it will create a blanket of suspicion and undermine trust in all adults working with children
• 68% say it will lead to miscarriages of justice, with innocent people being unfairly barred from working with children and their reputations and careers ruined
• 76% say there is a real danger that sensitive information will be lost or released in error with the risk that reputations and careers could be seriously damaged
• 80% believe it is about protecting agencies and schools and will not prevent paedophiles accessing children elsewhere
• 80% believe it is ‘way over the top’ and needs to be replaced with a simple, common sense vetting system.

You can read the full press release here.

The survey comes as the Conservative Party in their 2010 election manifesto pledged to ’scale back’ the Vetting and Barring Scheme to ‘common sense levels’.

Today The Tutor Pages has launched a new survey of private tutors’ reactions to the government’s new vetting and barring scheme.

Later this year the UK government will introduce measures intended to protect children and vulnerable adults and reduce the risk of abuse from paedophiles and other unsuitable people. Many of those who work with children will have to register with the government’s Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) under a new vetting and barring scheme.

If you are a tutor or coach, please take part in our survey to voice your opinion on this vitally important issue, and for a chance to win a year’s membership to The Tutor Pages.

If you know any private teachers, we kindly request that you let them know the link below so that they can take part in the survey.

Here is the link to the survey:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ISAtutorsurvey

Answering the survey takes about 5 minutes.

If you are a tutor, here are three important reasons for taking part in this survey:

• this scheme will have a profound effect on tutoring in the UK, and our survey will inform you of how you will be affected.
• gathering a large number of responses means that we can voice the opinions of tutors in general, and promote your best interests.
• you will have the chance to win one of 50 free memberships to The Tutor Pages (or a free renewal if you’re a current member).

Thank you for your time, and we sincerely hope you will wish to take part.

Sincerely,

Henry Fagg

Director, The Tutor Pages Ltd

Later this year the UK government will introduce measures intended to protect children and
vulnerable adults and reduce the risk of abuse from paedophiles and other unsuitable people.

Many of those who work with children will have to register with the Independent Safeguarding
Authority (ISA) under a new vetting and barring scheme.

If you are a tutor or coach, please take part in our survey to voice your opinion on this vitally
important issue, and for a chance to win a year's membership to The Tutor Pages.

If you know any private teachers, we kindly request that you forward this email to them so that
they are able to take part in the survey.

Here is the link to the survey:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ISAtutorsurvey

Answering the survey takes about 5 minutes.

If you are a tutor, here are three important reasons for taking part in this survey:

- this scheme will have a profound effect on tutoring in the UK, and our survey will inform you of
how you will be affected.
- gathering a large number of responses means that we can voice the opinions of tutors in general,
and promote your best interests.
- you will have the chance to win one of 50 free memberships to The Tutor Pages (or a free renewal
if you're a current member).

Thank you for your time, and we sincerely hope you will wish to take part.

Sincerely,

Henry Fagg
Director, The Tutor Pages Ltd

However,

• the ‘free sample sessions’ advertised on the homepage don’t appear to be currently available;
• there’s no evidence presented for why her system might work as well as she promises (though, to be fair, she’s published very popular educational maths books for Dorling Kindersley, and has worked hard to promote maths across the political divide);
• although parents are subscribing to a software product (albeit a sophisticated one), the promotion material is quite cheeky in appropriating the language of private one-to-one tuition – for example, ‘Carol Vorderman is your child’s personal tutor and she’s passionate about maths. We teach on a one-to-one basis’;
• the survey which the The Maths Factor launch is piggy-backing on (revealing that one in five primary primary school pupils receive extra help from a private tutor) is not startling, and confirms data from earlier studies.

Finally, the most amusing detail of this story has to be the reaction to the survey by former chief inspector of schools Chris Woodhead, as reported in The Daily Telegraph:

“This statistic demonstrates how Labour has failed generations of primary schoolchildren … Nothing is more important to children’s education than being able to read, write and add up. Billions of pounds have been spent to no avail.”

Leaving aside the hyperbole, I’d like to see the statistics to support Chris’s assertion that ‘billions of pounds’ were spent to ‘no avail’. Then we’ll see who can or can’t ‘add up’.