I was thinking about Kings' "strict" behavioural policy today. Basically, there is an escalating scale of sanctions depending on the offence and whether it is a one-off or repetitive behaviour. These sanctions range from a verbal warning, through lunch time detentions, after school detentions, isolation, inclusion room (excluded from lessons and their friends but still in school), temporary exclusion and if they are really really awful and we are talking psychotic, they might, just might get permanently excluded and off the school roll. This rarely happens as excluding a pupil from here just means the County has to find them another school or education elsewhere.
When I was at school, I was beaten with everything ranging from a ruler to a slipper to a plimsoll and the ultimate weapon, the cane. My transgressions ranged from punching someone for calling me a name, breaking a light with a football inside a classroom, cheating in a Latin test and smoking. These are the ones I remember.
It is too simplistic to believe that corporal punishment could once again act as the deterrent it was. However, I don't believe the sanctions we have now carry anything like the kind of weight that caning did. They are not punishment as such but consequences. I wholeheartedly support the thought that children need to have clear consequences for their actions and those actions need to be consistently applied. I would like to see how some of these cocky teenagers would react to 6 of the best from my old Housemaster or even one of the other teachers at my old school who used to throw the javelin for his country.....
