Honestly, you’d think i have nothing better to do. Like educate my children, for example. Fortunately for Badman, Balls and Brown, my maths is now much better than when i left school so i can help them regain a little bit of perspective.

It is even less nice when newspapers who should know better, get on the bandwagon. Now, i was brought up at the knee of a journalist (or some other low joint ) and one who wrote (as a sports journalist latterly, not a main page journalist i will say for absolute clarity) for The Evening Standard, The Telegraph, The Independent and The Guardian. And as he often said – “never let the facts get in the way of a good story”. And that is certainly true of this little bit of tabloid tat.

You know, i’m tired of this now but let’s go through it again. i have my patience for my children and i’m an inclusive sort of person, so i am happy to go through it again for the terrible trio who are clearly in Set C and struggling to get their required levels, and the writers of that piece.

There aren’t 20,000 HE’d kids in the country; there are, by your own admission, 50-80,000. And if Contactpoint and the LAs and Social Services are doing their job, the ones who need to be known to the authorities already are.

Known to Social Services doesn’t mean “being abused”. It can mean left school to be HEd, is severely disabled or has learning difficulties, it can mean was bullied or truanted while at school, it can mean was suicidal by the time they left school. It can mean a nosy neighbour reported them to SS because they aren’t in school. It can mean the Head Teacher erroneously reported them on deregistration. It can mean a malicious report and a happy, chatty visit from an unworried social worker. It can mean that Social Services do EHE visits in that area.

Anyway. Okay. You’ve deduced that 0.4% of 20,000 children are known to Social Services. THAT IS EIGHTY CHILDREN. Millions of £££s over concerns about 80 children you already know about, meaning you are going to investigate 50,000 to 80,000 children and their families to see if any of them need your help.

Please, PLEASE get some perspective. You ALREADY have the power to remove those children if there is cause or create Child Protection Plans for them. It is already law. Freely available to you to use. Surely i don’t need to tell you this?

On the other hand, you’ve discovered that 0.2% of children in general are known to Social Services. There are, what?, 6 million children in this country. 0.2% of that is an awful lot more than 80. The country is bankrupt; can you really afford to concentrate on the 80? Really?

You’ll be glad to know, Badman, Balls and Brown, that i have a literacy lesson coming up for you too.

And before anyone starts; yes of course i care about the tinier still percentage of that 80 who actually need SS help. Luckily the SS have a great record of doing really well in child protection cases and i’m sure will do brilliantly.