A teacher just sent me an email detailing the effects of child protection regulations in their school. What is clear is that these rules really affect the daily life of schools, the ways in which parents are able to play a part in school life and attend events, or collaborations between pupils and groups in the local area:

'(i) When the parents’ choir rehearses school pupils are not allowed in the music department (because the parents are un-vetted)
(ii) When the annual tea-party for older people takes place the outdoor school loos are closed to children (unvetted adults on the premises again – who knows what Mildred might do with that zimmerframe...?)

(iii) It’s a multi-site school and so it’s impossible to check everyone who enters a building. Visitors are meant to report to reception (fair enough) but if there is a play or concert in the evening the audience now have to log onto the school website, get an e-ticket (for which they presumably have to give all sorts of details) print it out and bring it with them. Up until a term ago people just turned up
(iv) the colleague who despite having taught at the school for 30 years had problems on his return to help out with a short-term staff sickness – because he had left two years ago his CRB didn’t count and there wasn’t time to get a new one, so he was allowed only in one teaching block and the staff room, wasn’t allowed to speak to pupils outside the classroom and had to be escorted from lesson to lesson...
(v) I've been trying to set up a project whereby 15 and 16-year old boys take part in a befriending the elderly scheme. Trouble is that AgeUK want the pupils CRB checked and the school says they have to do this in twos...'

Virtually every meeting between pupils and another group becomes a protection issue of some kind - the result is the cutting off of pupils from the ouside world. And what must the children think about all this?: I'd be very curious to know.