Taking a knife to school

and threatening to kill your fellow students when you are only eight years old is surely cause for alarm? This is surely especially so when the child in question has already shown serious behavioural problems?

This is not normal child behaviour and I the school in question does not  believe it is. The school has been trying to cope with this and apparently says the child in question has "complex" needs. Parents are now beginning to ask, "Why is this child in this school?"

No doubt the school will have to go on trying to cope with the child and other children are going to have to go on fearing this child and his behaviour. There is nowhere else for the child to go. There are no schools for "disturbed" children in this state. There are not even special classes where these children can be given the help they need while keeping other children safe. I feel very sorry for all involved.

I thought of this as I read through the conditions being imposed on a man who is being released into the community after many, many years in prison. This man did not actually murder anyone but he was involved in covering up some of the most horrific murders imaginable. There is, perhaps rightly, great concern about his release into the community even with very strict conditions. The conditions are actually so strict he is going to have great difficulty in keeping to them. He will always be supervised - and I do not envy the parole officers their job. He is 65 years of age and will not find employment but he will need things to do, ways to structure his days or have them structured for him. "Volunteering" is almost certainly out of the question as police checks are needed for almost everything now.

I wondered what this man was like at school. I wondered what level of literacy he reached. There have been hints that he performed very poorly at school, that he was not given the help he needed then. If that is so would he have been different if he had been given more help? Are we setting the current eight year old child on the same sort of path? Is sending him to the same school as his peer group so that it can be said he is being "included" really the best thing for him - and everyone else? 

There are many people who believe the man just released should remain in prison for the rest of his life. I am all too well aware that he may go back there because he is unable to cope with life "outside". That may well be the most likely outcome - and the most expensive. Those complaining, as the writer of the article in today's paper has, that he can now get Centrelink benefits fails to recognise that it would cost more to keep him in prison.

Those who tried to reduce the cost of educating those with special needs by putting them in "mainstream" classrooms have failed to recognise the same thing. Spending money on educating a severely disturbed child in a specialised setting may well save money in the future. It may also lead to a safer, happier community for everyone - one which is actually also more "inclusive".