'Give kids a right royal rollicking'
School behaviour tsar spells out his solution to Britain's unruly classrooms: don't suspend pupils, just send them to the head.
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Independent Minds
A good old-fashioned bawling out in the head's office can be a better way of dealing with badly behaved pupils than suspending them, the Government's behaviour "tsar" says today.
Sir Alan Steer, a former headteacher, warns that schools that frequently suspend pupils for two or three weeks at a time should review their policies because they are failing to tackle poor behaviour.
"Sending them to the head and giving them a right royal rollicking could be better than giving them a fixed-term exclusion," he said in an interview with The Independent.
"Some schools seem to have very high levels of fixed-term exclusions," he said ."I don't see that as showing you're tough on discipline. It could be absolutely the opposite. It is not being very effective and you might need to rethink your strategy if a pupil is excluded again and again. They just get used to being out of school."
Sir Alan, a former head of Seven Kings school in Ilford, Essex, who is coming to the end of his four-year tenure, was speaking for the first time since his "swansong" report on discipline last month. His comments also come on the day a new report shows that bright pupils in disadvantaged schools are missing out on GCSE grades because of the anti-learning culture of other children in the school.
The report, by the education charity the Sutton Trust, revealed talented pupils in the most disadvantaged schools underperform compared to pupils from the suburbs by half a grade per GCSE.
Sir Alan also discussed his plan to enshrine in law the teacher's right to impose discipline – making measures such as detention and confiscating mobile phones legal. He considers the new powers necessary because too many parents challenge school discipline rather than support it. As a result, some schools are reluctant to use traditional methods of discipline.
Sir Alan also warned that schools are flouting a new law under which children expelled or suspended are entitled to a full-time education after six days out of the classroom. By not sticking to the rules, excluded pupils are left to roam the streets and are falling prey to gang influences. "They're not likely to go to libraries," he added.
Figures show that, while the overall number of permanent exclusions has fallen to around 8,680 a year, the number of suspensions has risen. In particular, according to figures released by the Conservatives, the number of children excluded more than 10 times in a year has tripled in four years.
Michael Gove, the shadow Education Secretary, says that headteachers should have more freedom to exclude pupils permanently by abandoning the right to appeal against exclusion, but Sir Alan said he believed Mr Gove's case to be "misleading".
"It is said that 25 per cent of pupils successfully appeal," he said. "Well, there are 8,680 permanent exclusions – 970 of which went to appeal. Of these 250 were successful but only 100 of them ended with the pupil being being reinstated. You can see where they got the 25 per cent figure from, just about, but the number reinstated was about 1.2 per cent of the total."
Sir Alan also wants new powers allowing teachers to search pupils for weapons, drugs and alcohol to be reviewed in three years' time to see whether they are effective. He said: "If you're faced with a 6ft 6in teenager you suspect of having a machete, I would be the first to say it's a case for bringing in the boys in blue rather than searching for it yourself."
Sir Alan, who caused controversy when he launched his latest report at the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers' conference with a declaration that "there is no behaviour crisis in schools", stuck to his guns. "I really strongly believe we don't have a crisis in our schools," he said. "We have problems and we have to tackle them but there have always been problems. Most kids are great. Why don't we think more of the 150,000 kids who are sole carers for their family – or the tens of thousands who spend hours and hours volunteering in the community? We have a tendency to be constantly negative about children."
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Comments
people with these qualities- is leadership the single word?- unfortunately do not grown on trees or this would be a blissful world
Tell me, who is Mr. Balls? We seem to have too many directives on the school these days.
School behaviour tsar spells out his solution to Britain's unruly classrooms: don't suspend pupils, just send them to the head.
By Richard Garner, Education Editor
Sir Alan Steer, a former headteacher, warns that schools that frequently suspend pupils for two or three weeks at a time should review their policies because they are failing to tackle poor behaviour.
I agree to you and Mr. Balls. I love many opinions. However, who will follow these. We are confused in the poverty lane. The politics too stinks these days and we want to revamp this as Brown is looking for another foot!!!
I thank you
Firozali A. Mulla
We have seen a succession of 'tsars' come and go - the drugs tsar was a particularly egregious example - and they are usually an attempt to gull the public into thinking strong action is being taken.
In short: they're a branch of spin.
Sir Alan hasn't got a clue about the impact of the current hedonist dystopia, nor does he connect with the social and economic forces which raise the question in many teenager's mind: "WTF?"
If your fate is shelf stacking in the local Tescos, why not start at 14?
The Education Ministers should apologise, on behalf of all governments since British Heydays of Empire, for having squandered the wealth of the country on foreign wars and ventures, when it could have done much to improve the education of the seed corn (children) of Britain.
Twelve or fourteen pupils to a teacher, surely would have produced a better and more educated character.
Many more schools and not many less, might have been a convincing argument for a serious debate about troublesome pupils, but as long as education is being treated like a necessary evil for the masses, then articles like these are ridiculous.
Such hypocrisy is becoming to a country, which still denies its two-tier, two-class system and devil take the hindmost. As ye sow, so shall ye reap?
the kids of today are voracious and have more "human" rights than any generation before.
you seriously think a talking-to by the headmaster is of any relevance to a teenager
in 2009? dream on.
....and would you want to be the headmaster or the teacher doing the disciplining to be
slapped by a lawsuit? i doubt it.
The only way would be to have a 3 strikes and you are out policy...in which case what do you
do with the kid then?
Or of course that "old chestnut", making the parents pay for the indiscretions of the child.
Teaching...who on earth would want to go into that profession?
My school employs a full time, uniformed police officer on the premises. Another member of staff is an ex-policeman. He tells me that if our students spoke to a police officer the way they speak to school staff, they would be arrested on the spot. Sadly, we have no such deterrent in schools and so will remain human punchbags (verbal and physical) thanks to the misguided, politically-correct dogma that is spawned by government education officials.
the only sensible idea so far on this page is that any 'child' over say 14 who has a job or job training to go to (or maybe even who can prove that they can be self-supporting?) should be allowed to leave school provided that they agree to regular monitoring until they are, say, 16;
there is no point at all in expecting schools to put to rights all the wrongs of the fundamentally dishonest society in which today's 'children' are growing up and whose shoddy values they are absorbing daily;
(from yet another person who has escaped from the classroom- this time into a nice warm if extremely penurious early retirement -remember all those early retirements of c 20 years ago?- almost everyone i know in my age group got out as soon as the offer was made - and many if us moved into teaching evening classes full of VOLUNTEERS and my god that was lovely!
We need to put this on the staute books - it is so right.
Appearently poor behavior is attempting to be changed by poor "discipline"...a word wich I noticed was left out of the ENTIRE article...WHY? Sure we want "behavior modification" but that phrase seems to have been overlooked also. I watch The Nanny here in America all the time and if she can't fix the problem then it can't be fixed! That is unless you want to do it the "old fashioned" way...the way my mother and daddy did it. Allow the offender(s) to go outside and pick a switch of their choice...if they fail to pick one that will do the job sufficiently then send them out AGAIN, until they get one that the teacher or principal can work with. You then have them bend over and tap them with sufficient force that they let out a little yelp (sorta like a pup when you step on it's tail). Continue this process until the offender's yelps (that tend to be worse than the spanking being administered) cease to be
very loud and they are now bearing real tears at a whimper...you have now got your message across to the individual that HAD a behavioral problem. Glory be! That individual will now mind much better in class and allow ALL the other student who had been abiding by the school's class rules to be able to pay more attention in that class now. I certainly hope no ONE think this be too harsh...it is NOT meant to be the first discipline applied but this should be the 3rd time offense punishment (another bad word I suppose)...a lot of people cringe at the thought of corporal punishment...but it DOES work when administered correctly.
I came from a family of 10 children...there is not enough time in a day to put that many kids in "time out"...my mother would have freaked had she tried this. My mother was a devout church going lady and she certainly knew what the Bible says about disciplining children. As a child I used to hear comments of praise heaped on my mother. I can recall several but one in particular. "Mrs. Watkins, you sure have a large group of well-behaved children...I don't know how you do it." And since they did not know...their children and ALL the other children whose parents had NO concept of how corporal punishment works has put the world into the position that is now in ALL our homes, schools and universities.
Deal with it and expect it to get a lot worse in the future...God Bless
Happy Mother's Day Mom...I Love You!
Z. Watkins
Texas
And in a similar statment...
"Sir Alan, who caused controversy when he launched his latest report at the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers' conference with a declaration that "there is no behaviour crisis in schools", stuck to his guns."
What a phrase to use coming from that part of the world...WHAT GUNS?
Brad, Sydney
Oops, tried that, didn't work either.
Unfit parents are also effectively the authors of an unelected opposition to any Govt educational policy. These parents must accept social responsiblity. Their children should be sent to existing boarding schools durring the week.
There is no sanction to support the purely verbal castigation, so it is pointless. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me".
It is time to bring back the cane. No pupil has ever been harmed by justifiable application of bamboo on gluteus maximus.
I well remember standing outside the headmaster's study very publicly, because everybody had to pass by that particular door, so everyone knew you were there. There was no hiding, and the prospect of a thrashing made even the loudest braggarts keep their mouths shut.
Not being a parent, teacher or a current student, I don't claim to be an expert on these things, but I do agree with those who have said that there are no easy answers to this question, and that the problem is probably a wider socioeconomic/cultural one.
I think billendmunds has got the right idea. I've taught in a number of tough schools and I see the same thing over and over again - the majority of pupils are ready and willing to get on with their lessons, but are prevented from doing so by a "hard core" of disruptive pupils. The trouble is, that whereas when I was at school, this "core" might number half a dozen or so pupils throughout the school, now it's that many per class! If I was able to remove all those from my classes - add their number to the kids who are disrupting other classes... where do you put them?
What is needed is (sorry for the cliche!) the short sharp shock which a PRU can provide. It won't work for all the disruptive pupils, but it would work for some which would mean that they - and the other pupils in the class - would stand a better chance of getting an education.
The oldest is 20 now and the youngest is 14. They have both done extremely well so far in their young lives. They both have been disciplined the "old fashion way". They are model students and young adults...both are extremely "high achievers". Here is a small sample of my oldest childs achievment...her name is Samantha. She is currently a rated as a Senior at this grand ol' University. I wish all parents were this lucky!
http://smu.edu/ps/Current_Scholars/prof
'Judge not by race or sex but by actions & intent'
Me 2009
What happens when the monsters leave school? Riots outside? We've had a few of those already. Attacks on public transport? Sir Alan, retire, smoke your pipe, do your garden while you can. Governments have destroyed education and thus the citizens of this country over the last forty years..since the last war anyway and tinkering about with searches, exclusions and all the rest of it will do absolutely nothing. There is a hardcore of that hateful word 'kids' in this country now who are so deeply ignorant, so steeped in violence and evil that nothing on earth will change them. They have been made that way. You can't unmake them. Yes, maybe most 'kids' are "great" although I would dispute that statement, but it only takes fewer of those who are not "great" to destroy everything for everyone, not just for each other.
Bring back the cane for schools and prisons.
Discipline works!
Or are we happy with today's violent and disrespectful society?
Bring back the cane in schools with necessary controls to avoid sadism. Make prisons a place you don't want to end up in.
Otherwise you get anarchy,..., and we're nearly there I assure you!
His panacea is laughable and is typical of the shallow insulting policies which have gone on in the name of education for at least the last 30 years. Of course it is not surprising that these people advise such nonsense as they too have been so called educated here, be it private or public.
When teachers have been hamstrung for years by moronic policies and only the tip of the iceberg has been sniffed at, is it surprising that we have this situation?
The whole picture has to be explained from a position which is outside the box, thus parents, the media, myopic cultural relativism, extreme capitalism and the growth of a society which contains few values based on ethical human endeavour is to blame for the mess this country is in.
The big picture holds the key and not one which is held by those idiots with titles.
Ah well this guy is a good accountant he rips us off, give that person a title for services rendered to moronicity - (new word).
Most people with that type of mentality most likely would never be able to raise children that could adjust to the system instead of
vica-verca. I just kept my distance and picked my friends carefully. Lots of crazy people running loose during that time period. The DOJ/BOP has done nothing but grow bigger since then also...with the biggie being drug arrests.