I have just seen the film "ahead of the Class" staring Julie Walters as Headmistress Marie Stubbs. The Film is based on a true story of how a headmistress saved the notorious St George's School in West London, (mixed secondary - 500 Children).

The School was rough and chaotic, following the murder of its Headmaster "Philip Lawrence" at its gates 5 years earlier. Philip Lawrence died trying to defend a pupil from a knife wielding bully. His school is in the public sector, CP in 1995 was not allowed.

The Film story occurred in 2000/01. No Corporal Punishment.

The school recovered under the remarkable leadership of Marie Stubbs.

AND

On the Teachers who paddle thread, 28th Feb 2009, at 11:30, there is a BBC clip which includes and interview (at clip time 2:45) with a Headmaster in Croydon, just south of London, who has effective alternatives to CP, yet some of the boys in his school want it reintroduced.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theoneshow/consumer/2008/10/24/bring-back-the-cane.html



The Headmaster is John Murphy, his school became Oasis Academy in September 2008, replacing Coulsdon High School. The school is in the public sector, for every day children. They have firm structured discipline, accompanied by a unique reward system. He does not believe in Corporal Punishment.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

So 2 current examples of how effective education can be achieved in UK,without Corporal Punishment.

Personally I was in favour of reintroducing CP, but having seen the Film, and the Croydon clip, it seems I am wrong. True discipline, and proper learning can be achieved in UK schools without CP.

But, its 9 years since Marie Stubbs success, why hasn't her example been copied everywhere ? Individual Head Teachers do make a huge difference to a school, was Marie Stubbs successful by unique personality skills that cannot easily be copied, or are other Headteachers unteachable ??

Why aren't other schools run as tightly and effectively as in the Oasis Academy ?

Is CP the alternative for you and me, and maybe the majority of schools whose head teachers lack unique leadership personalities ?

Toby-John

Unique Leadership Personalities

our friend Bob T has just commented in the thread 'TWP why "anti's" fear cameras.'

The Fed Govt is considering a nation wide ban on SCP right now. With Obama in office I think it has a chance. With Dubya in office it had no chance what so ever.


I hope Obama does not read this thread of mine, as he definitely does have a "Unique Leadership Personality".

But he also has wisdom, and will realise that whereas he is one of the "few" who may be able to inspire a whole school to work effectively as a school should, most headteachers lack that special skill, and need the help of small persuasion tools.

Toby-John

I am really surprised that none of you, not even Dr Dominum
has anything suitable to say regarding the apparent organisation and discipline sucess of Marie Stubbs ?

Nor any comment about the different styles of Head Teachers.


Toby-John

Sorry Toby-John,

As you may or may not have noticed I'm involved in some discussions here in a number of threads that take quite a lot of my time to participate in. My time is not unlimited. When a new thread begins I may not look at it to begin with, because I'm already busy. And also because I don't really feel it's good for a forum for a few regular posters to monopolise everything. But, I do actually have something to say about this.

I am reasonably familiar with the case of St George's School - and not just not from TV. I've met Lady Stubbs and have talked with her about it, although not in a lot of detail (more me expressing my admiration for what she had achieved than anything else.)

The school recovered under the remarkable leadership of Marie Stubbs.

Yes. It did. She did a sterling job. But let's understand what it is that she did. In the space of about a year and a half, she turned a failing school into a non-failing school. A decent school. Not a brilliant school. But a decent one. That's a wonderful achievement, and it would be great if all failing schools could be improved like that.

But it's like going from an F grade to a C grade. What you end up with is adequate and decent - but there's still a lot of room for improvement.

And the school has continued to improve since then. I'd say it's a solid B at this point. There's still room for improvement.

A lot of people seem to have the view that corporal punishment is something that could be usefully introduced into the worst schools and miraculously improve them. That won't work. It's doomed to failure. If somebody had come into St George's in 2000 and just started using a cane, they wouldn't have done any good whatsoever.

Where corporal punishment is useful and makes a difference is in schools that are least properly functioning at a basic level. Where the majority of students are behaving the majority of the time. Corporal punishment isn't going to fix Britain's failing schools, or any one elses for that matter. But it can lead to improvements in schools that are already doing OK.

Does that mean, it should have been introduced at St George's when it reached C standard?

No - because it's still continually improving as it is. The approach they are taking is working and leading to ongoing improvement. You don't mess around with that. The time to consider introducing corporal punishment, if it's an option to do so, is when a school's disciplinary standard is standing still, and there's still room for improvement. Or when it is starting to slide. Not when there's improvement.

If St George's sits where it is now for five years, then, yes, this is the type of approach that might be useful in getting further improvement. But it isn't needed now.

So 2 current examples of how effective education can be achieved in UK,without Corporal Punishment.

The thing is, what you need to consider is this.

A school where 90% of the pupils behave 90% of the time is a school which is likely to look very effective in terms of maintaining discipline. And it is. That's a school that is doing very, very well.

But if introducing corporal punishment makes it a school where 95% of the pupils behave 95% of the time - that's even better, and it's worth having.

Far, far too often people only seem to think that we need to worry about improving schools that are in crisis, and that schools that are doing OK can be ignored. Of course, we have to address the needs of schools in crisis - but that doesn't mean you don't improve other schools as well when you can.

If you have ten schools in an area, one is an F grade, one is a D grade, and the other eight are B grade - there's a tendency by people to act as if only two of those schools need worrying about. But even if you get both those schools up to a B grade, you've made less overall progress than if you'd got all eight B grade schools to A grade. Yes, we need to improve failing schools, but we don't need to ignore schools that are doing a decent job to do that - we need to see how we can make those better schools as well.

Personally I was in favour of reintroducing CP, but having seen the Film, and the Croydon clip, it seems I am wrong. True discipline, and proper learning can be achieved in UK schools without CP.

For a lot of children, this is true. But such an approach leaves some kids to slip through the cracks. Do you want to improve education for 90% of children? or 95%? or 99%? Is near enough good enough for you? It's certainly a whole lot better than nothing. But, personally, I think every school should be the best school it can be. Not just pretty good.

I'm sure Dr Dominum is right in many ways but what the great British public seem to want is CP being reintroduced to "fix" untameable brats in troubled schools or administered by the courts to delinquents. If this isn't going to "work" (as he believes to be the case) then very few people would approve of CP being reintroduced in decent schools without major discipline problems and I also doubt very much whether they'd take to their sons receiving the "benefit" of CP (remember most UK schools are now coed) and their daughters being spared. Our boys behaved well in school and I am still of the same opinion that threatening them with the potential of being caned (even if their behaviour made this unlikely) would have been counter-productive and discriminatory. What might they have been caned FOR I ask - defending themselves, getting a low mark in a subject, forgetting PE kit? These have all been "caneable" offences in the past and as a father I'm afraid if this happened I would be rather inclined to forgo my blameless citizenship and make my opposition known, showing that violence begets violence by kicking some cane-happy headmaster's head in.

Also as has been stated several times teachers are overwhelmingly opposed to the reintroduction of CP and I'm sure that, even if they did not instigate the national ban on CP, European human rights would soon surface.

I still believe that CP is dead as an issue in Britain and throughout Europe and all we will soon have left are rotten old memories.

Hi neilfrommanc


I'm sure Dr Dominum is right in many ways but what the great British public seem to want is CP being reintroduced to "fix" untameable brats in troubled schools or administered by the courts to delinquents.

The drunken "ladettes" spring to mind.

If this isn't going to "work" (as he believes to be the case) then very few people would approve of CP being reintroduced in decent schools without major discipline problems and I also doubt very much whether they'd take to their sons receiving the "benefit" of CP (remember most UK schools are now coed) and their daughters being spared.

Shouldn't that be "...their daughters being denied [the benefit of CP]"? If CP were re-introduced in schools now, and my daughters were exempt from it (just for being girls), I'd fight tooth and nail to ensure my sons were exempt too.

Our boys behaved well in school and I am still of the same opinion that threatening them with the potential of being caned (even if their behaviour made this unlikely) would have been counter-productive and discriminatory. What might they have been caned FOR I ask - defending themselves, getting a low mark in a subject, forgetting PE kit?

Just falling victim to girls (exempt from the cane themselves) contriving to get boys caned.

Is corporal punishment really necessary in UK schools ?

A good question but one that almost impossible to answer.

It depends on what you want to achieve by the use of corporal punishment.

Is it supposed to be reformatory, a deterrent, or simply a punishment ?

What is certain is that when the cane was withdrawn as an approved punishment we were a much more compliant society. Most pupils who were caned obediently bent over when instructed to and remained bent until told to stand. An integral part of accepting a caning is the willing submission to a higher authorities decision to punish you in this manner. You voluntarily remained bent despite the increasing pain. You were not restrained in any way you could have terminated your caning at any time but you chose not to.

Corporal punishment may not be necessary in schools, but the end product of schools is the society in which we all have to live.

A gross exaggeration is to promulgate the view that our sate schools are producing, and have produced for years, generations of feral brats, who have no respect either for themselves our others. As I say a gross exaggeration but not entirely without substance. The often misquoted Jesuit phrase, Give me the boy, and Ill give the man ( yes I know this is misquoted ) just about sums it up. You will get out of the system what you put in or allow to occur.

When the cane was extant most of us where never caned, but for those of us that were it was at least a genuine punishment. Most of us didnt need to be caned, but some of us did. So do Is corporal punishment really necessary ? Yes but not necessarily for the effect it has just within school. I dont go to school anymore, but I do live with the products of schools.

I'm sure Dr Dominum is right in many ways but what the great British public seem to want is CP being reintroduced to "fix" untameable brats in troubled schools or administered by the courts to delinquents.

Yes, a lot of people do want that, and I can understand why.

But it illustrates the fundamental problem with education today. People act as if you only ever need to worry about the lowest common denominator. Putting all the focus on fixing the 'worst children' means putting less focus on the average child, the normal child, the well behaved child.

Why should the worst behaved children be entitled to more consideration than anybody else? How is that fair?

And, worse, than if it's fair or not, it's a self perpetuating cycle - because even if you do find a way of 'fixing the worst children' (and the fact is, they often do - it's just nobody notices because those kids cease to be the ones anybody notices, and a new group of previously neglected children now become the worst offenders, and the new focus).

If you really want to fix behavioural problems in schools, you have to target the children who aren't causing the problems and prevent them falling to replace the worst as the worst, in the event you actually do find a way of fixing the worst problems.

If this isn't going to "work" (as he believes to be the case) then very few people would approve of CP being reintroduced in decent schools without major discipline problems and I also doubt very much whether they'd take to their sons receiving the "benefit" of CP (remember most UK schools are now coed) and their daughters being spared.

The thing is, it depends on what question is asked.

If you simply ask: "Do you think the cane should be reintroduced into schools?" you get a very different response than if you ask the question "Do you think schools should have the option of reintroducing corporal punishment in cases where the school community feels it is appropriate?"

and the second question is, generally, a far more accurate presentation of what is really being contemplated than the former. The former implies that the cane is going to be introduced into "decent schools without major discipline problems" whether it serves a purpose or not. The latter doesn't imply that it all. It leaves the decision in the hands of those most associated with a particular school.

Our boys behaved well in school and I am still of the same opinion that threatening them with the potential of being caned (even if their behaviour made this unlikely) would have been counter-productive and discriminatory. What might they have been caned FOR I ask - defending themselves, getting a low mark in a subject, forgetting PE kit? These have all been "caneable" offences in the past and as a father I'm afraid if this happened I would be rather inclined to forgo my blameless citizenship and make my opposition known, showing that violence begets violence by kicking some cane-happy headmaster's head in.

Yes, and I can understand those concerns (although, you can actually fairly easily set rules that should prevent that type of thing happening).

But, again, it comes down to the question being asked. With the second question (the better question) I've given above, it is up to you and other members of the school community to decide whether or not you trust your child's school to use corporal punishment appropriately. If you do not trust them, then, of course, you wouldn't want to give them that power. But how about if you do trust them? It's up to your community to decide, first of all, if corporal punishment would serve any purpose in your school, and secondly, if you think it would, can the school be trusted to use it properly? Only if your answer to both questions is yes, should it be allowed.

But if your answer to both questions is yes, the option is there.

Also as has been stated several times teachers are overwhelmingly opposed to the reintroduction of CP

Again, it depends on what question is asked.

If teachers are asked "Do you think corporal punishment should be introduced?" you only get a minority response in favour.

If, instead, you ask: "Do you think corporal punishment should be introduced provided there are robust and detailed safeguards in place to ensure that it is only used in particular circumstances?", you get a very different answer. Precisely what the answer is, depends on precisely on what those safeguards are, and also what circumstances it is to be used in.

(For example: "Do you think corporal punishment should be introduced but only for situations where it an alternative to exclusion?", recent surveys I am aware of show over 60% support among teachers in the UK, as opposed to about 22% support. "Do you think corporal punishment should be introduced, but only for children whose misbehaviour reaches criminal standards?", likewise gets a much higher result. A lot of teachers have the same type of concerns you do - that it might be used in cases of minor, even trivial, misbehaviour and, of course, they don't want to see that happen. They'd rather not have if at all if that is what happens.

As I've mentioned previously, back in the 1970s, at my school I was regarded as an abolitionist. Why? Because I was constantly pushing to stop overuse and inappropriate use. And if the only way we could have stopped that was abolition, I'd have supported that. But a middle ground is possible and achieveable, so the choice doesn't have to be black and white.