WindupMerchant

Just seen an item on BBC News about South Africans living in the UK sending their children to Nigeria for their schooling due to their opinion of deteriating standards in British schools and the efect it has on their children. The jist being the lack of respect shown by pupils to each other and teachers; the deteriation in their childrens' behaviour and losing parental guidance due to peer pressure from other pupils....etc
Also, most schools in Nigeria advocate corporal punishment.

social observer

I had quite a lot of liaison with our local secondary school and quickly came to the conclusions that (A) it was far too big (1500+ kids - it had the population of a small town).
(B) Many of the teachers were utterly ill equipped to deal with unruly behaviour, both legal recourse and training.

I regularly strolled along the corridor to hear a teacher bawling out one or more kids in their classroom. This would be coming from practically every class sometimes.
Having dished out a large amount of b******ings to drunks, yobs, violent partners in domestics and those that should know better I could tell that these teachers had never really mastered the art of the bawl out (make the recipient feel 1 inch tall and naked in front of their mates) They just sounded like they had just lost it, which was probably the aim of the little s*d in the first place.

I doubt if effective discipline is really covered in teacher training.

Interestingly enough, the school has just started a sixth form, with kids who actually want to stay on and learn. The effect has been profound apparently. The sixth formers are becoming role models (no uniform, happy, keen and adult) and they stamp on kids shouting in the corrider or causing a ruck before the teachers even react, because its disturbing them. They are not afraid, or restrained, from handing out effective 'advice'.

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Bluemerle

Did anyone see Dispatches Channel 4 last night. A teacher went undercover to various schools, it was horrific. They had an inspection, but the kids who caused the most trouble were taken out for the day, so that the report was favourable.

The kids were fffing and blinding, throwing chairs, fighting, threatening, and the teachers, particularly the Head and Deputy Heads were useless. :evil:

social observer

Head teachers only usually get that far when they only have a few years to retirement.

I think many live by the mantra "Only five years to go, I can keep my head down till then." or "These little s*ds are 14 now, only 18 months and they're gone."

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louisec

hi, im 15, and im really interested in this topic. so much so im using 'should corporal punishment be re-introduced in schools' as my hypothesis for humanites coursework. i do not have a definite opinion on this topic as yet but what i am sure of is that something has to be done to give teachers the right to adequately punish wrongdoers, whether this is corporal punishment or another form.

many incidents of bullying happen in the school i attend, and most of the time nothing is done by the teachers to stop this. we have detentions, head of year detentions, report cards for teachers to fill in each lesson, and only in extreme cases expulsion is used. however my father is the head of a subject at my school and on occasion he has been chastised by the headteacher for his departmental policy of putting pupils who have failed to hand in homework 3 times INTO phpbb_detention. no other form of punishment has been suggested to replace this so now the children go unpunished, except for a letter home. in some cases this is adequate, but in others the wrongdoers parents do not in anyway care about the problem or think it is the schools duty to punish it. The other forms of punishment are also treated in this way and the teachers that do want to at least try to punish the pupils are reluctant to put them to use.

also, the only people in my school who care if they are put INTO phpbb_detention are the ones who hardly ever get INTO phpbb_trouble, so if the troublemakers are the ones not scared of the punishment something must be awry.

mkpdavies

This is the real problem. The teacher can't even use the minimal punishments they have available now!

I would suggest the headmaster at your school is a wet who needs sacking.

Bootcamps, real power to get disruptive kids kicked out, option of physical punishment if parents want it.

Lots needs to be done to bring back respect INTO phpbb_schools and society.

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louisec

the headteacher at my school is a reverend. hence the wetness i think

mkpdavies

Have the parents done anything about confronting him on this issue? The PTA must get involved and tell this muppet to stop tieing the teachers hands, even more than they already are!

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louisec

my parents both work at the school (which is fun). but because our school is not particularly badly behaved (only the occasional fight, no weapons, no attacks on teachers) no one who isnt subjected daily to the happenings, bullyings, and general rule breaking that happens, knows about the state of punishments. so nothing gets done.

for example, one of my friends is gay. funnily enough he tends to get picked on a lot, although part of this may be because he doesnt know when to keep his mouth shut. and one day, this girl started having a go at him for no reason, as you do, and of course he couldnt just walk away so they were hurling abuse at each other. another guy with us at the time is autistic, and he said one sentence in my friends defense and the girl took here bottle of water and soaked him from head to foot. with great self control i managed to stop myself from thumping her for doing this to such a defenseless person. then she turned on my gay friend and soaked him as well. i took them both to her head of year, and to my knowledge she has not been punished. its this kind of petty thing as well as serious physical bullying that needs punishment that means something.

Hartlepool

We had the cane to keep us in line,it hurt like hell and the teachers seldom gave only one stroke,it was always two. Six of the best was something else though and the pain would last for about two hours or so. I dont care who you are,how big,hard or even stupid,you did not risk the cane on a regular basis and you did learn some discipline from the age of 11 onwards by way of caning. The plimsole as used in the south was nothing but a joke compared with caning. Imagine it,a 3 foot bamboo cane,less than half an inch thick,being applied to your fingers from a starting position behind the head of the teacher. Yep,dont need too many of them before breaktime eh.

Bring it back and see how quickly the change occurs in the prevalent troublemakers.