I spent the morning with my year five class at Whitchurch School, yesterday (notice that “my” class!). We tried to get this blog up on the whiteboard, but wordpress.com is blocked at county level – so is YouTube. Beth, the year five teacher, told me they can’t even access BBC wildlife videos.

We all know that there is a lot of unsavoury stuff out there on the internet, but at least the teachers should be trusted to choose appropriate sites to put up on the whiteboard. Block the sites, but at least give a password key for teachers to access the complete network.

Man’s ingenuity has created the greatest educational resource in the whole of history – so what does the educational establishment do? It bans access to it!

I know that children should be kept safe on the internet but to ban them from the source of knowledge… when you think about it, it is really quite scandalous.