Aberfan Disaster - Friday 21st October 1966

In the rain soaked Welsh mining village of Aberfan in the county of Merthyr Tydfil, the morning of Friday 21st October 1966 started much the same as any other for the local residents. A small close knit community that consisted mainly of miners from the local colliery and there families, Aberfan was no different than any of the other villages that made up the Rhondda Valley.

Aberfan is located at the foot of Merthyr Mountain and was the home of Merthyr Vale Colliery. The mountain top was used to store the waste dug deep from the mines, this was not unusual, most of the mountains in the region were used the same way. What made Aberfan different was that the coal tip on Merthyr had been placed onto a known spring, making the heap more unstable than all others.

At 9.15am that morning the children at Pantglas Junior School were just settling into there seats having attended assembly and singing 'All things bright & beautiful'. Some seats were empty as the school bus from surrounding villages was running late due to the low fog, and there was a general air of excitement with it being the last day of school before the half term holidays started.

The first signs in the school that something was amiss was the thunderous noise that was reminiscent of a jet engine, getting louder and louder. Due to the low lying fog, the cause of the noise was not visible to the village until it was too late. The waste from waste tip number 7 had finally succumbed to the water it had soaked up from both the stream and the heavy rainfall. Watching from the top of the mountain, unable to prevent the disaster the tip workers watched in horror as tip 7 started its fateful journey down Merthyr mountain, directly towards the village and Pantglas School.

As the silence descended after the tip finally came to a halt, word spread across the valley about the disaster, men from the local mine downed tools and went to the surface to start digging the children out, many of the miners were digging for there own children. In total the slide demolished a farm and about 20 houses before smashing into the back of the school. The death toll was 144 in total, 116 of those being children aged 6 to 9, it took about 5 minutes for half of the pupils at the school to perish.

Although the miners and other rescuers from all over the valley dug for days to recover all of the bodies, no survivors were found inside the school after 11am that morning. On 25th October a mass funeral took place at the cemetary on the hillside overlooking the village. In memory of the generation of child who died, a memorial garden was built on the site of Pantglas School,funded by money from the memorial fund, the same fund had to pay towards the removal of the tips from the local hilltops after the NCB refused yo fund it totally, even though the enquiry report stated:

' the Aberfan Disaster is a terrifying tale of bungling ineptitude by many men charged with tasks for which they were totally unfitted, of failure to heed clear warnings, and of total lack of direction from above. Not villains but decent men, led astray by foolishness or by ignorance or by both in combination, are responsible for what happened at Aberfan. '

Every Child Matters

Where did the Every Child Matters come from?

Following the murder of Victoria Climbie in February 2000, which even though she had been seen by a range of health, social services and police authorities, Lord Laming produced a damning report on what had happened and how all professionals needed to co-ordinate their approach to children at risk.

So what did the government do?

In June 2003, Tony Blair appointed the first Children's Minister, based in the Department for Education and Skills, with responsibilities for all education and social services for children, families and young people. Margaret Hodge, the first Children's Minister, published the Every Child Matters Green Paper in September 2003, which provoked a huge debate about how to integrate children's services to ensure that no child slipped through the net.

What happened next?

The Children Act 2004 put into law the recommendations of Every Child Matters। In effect local education authorities were abolished and replaced by children’s services authorities। These new authorities must have one councillor as the ‘lead member’ for children and there has to be a Director of Children’s Services, who is responsible for education.

What does this mean for Social Services?

Services for Children & Young People in England, have been integrating change within there services for the last several years. Policies & procedures have been re-written to plug any holes that vulnerable children may be able to slip through. A new approach towards multi-agency working and the use of I.T through the Integrated Children's System, is helping improve outcomes for children & families. The program of change is still on-going .

What does this mean for schools?

Well, if we are trying to integrate all services for children, then schools have to be central to these changes, as in most cases, teachers have much more contact with children and their families than any other professionals.

What is the agenda?

The Every Child Matters agenda is really about delivering the five outcomes for children and young people in the Children Act. They are:

• Be Healthy
• Stay Safe
• Enjoy and Achieve
• Make a Positive Contribution
• Achieve Economic Well-Being

Teachers are just there to teach children, not to be Social Workers?

WRONG, child protection is a shared responsibility, and it rests with every professional or practitioner that has face to face contact with children & families. Don't be the one to let a child like Victoria Climbie slip through the net.

So what are the main issues going to be?

Establishing a common understanding of what children need and who can provide it is the big challenge for teachers, social workers, health workers and all the other professionals involved in dealing with children। The big prize, will be making it easier for all children and their parents to access the full range of services, but an even bigger prize is better co-ordination will mean that children like Victoria Climbie are spotted and made safe in an even bigger prize.