School system not good enough

4:08pm Monday 26th May 2008

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What a surprise! System to support children with behavioural problems is not good enough!

Ever since the Blair pledge, "Education,education,education", government interference in schools has been one of the reasons why behaviour standards have appeared to have fallen.

We have organisations agonising over a problem, which, if you look back in history, has received the same type of coverage before.

When schools had systems for discipline, behaviour was different.

When pupils had to stand in assembly and be inspected as to their dress, (dirty shoes, shirts, coats being punished by a system of "penalty points"), the pupils themselves berated the offenders, as they were letting the side down. In those days, the "house" system had a points target, and behaviour was rewarded. (Good behaviour got increased rewards, bad behaviour, inc dress, were penalised).

Pupils were, I think, smarter in those days, for this system seemed to work.

Also, there was the implementation of harsher penalties for other behaviour.

Lines had to be done (after school, and before the pupil was allowed home...cutting into the pupils free time was quite effective!) The ultimate penalty was the cane!

I do not remember anyone getting it twice.

After the "Education, education, education" statement, the government has systematically removed any kind of sanction which deals with bad behaviour, which the teachers had with which to control unruly pupils.

We are now spending millions on "Referral Units" "task groups", "Pastoral care units" etc etc etc.

The pupils are not the problem.

The imposition of unrealistic and political targets on schools are.

"Anti social behaviour" was invented by politicians.

"Targets" (for almost everything) were invented by politicians.

We had another slogan "tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime", where politicians, in order to be seen to be succeeding, invented a whole new category of "crimes", amongst the latest being getting prosecuted for having a bin lid raised 2 inches!!

We have to see, that in schools where teachers are set unrealistic targets, by a government which has no idea of teaching, this penalises the very pupils it is designed to help.

When teachers can be accused by pupils and their word taken without flinching, and teachers attempting to control errant teenagers are punished for these attempts, is it any wonder that when this is measured (because everything now has to be measured), we find the system failing??

We have government attempting to control what goes on in the home, pontificating on parents, on so called "sink estates".... an insulting term dreamed up since 1997, and concentrating on all the wrong things.

As a result, stabbed teachers get the headlines, and when kids actually do excel, with top examination results, these are castigated by a press more interested in headlines than children.

Perhaps we should throw out the political controls, the testing to stupefaction, the lack of firm discipline, the castigation of lifestyles and parents!!

Perhaps, for a change, we should stress responsibility, not rights!

In my experience, youngsters are much the same as they have always been, polite, hard working, intelligent, dedicated, and with the ability to take over, as my generation did, the responsibilities of the adult world which faces them.

It is so sad, that the impulse generated by government to measure everything without the comprehension of what measurement should really be used for, is as a result generating headlines that in some way, children have "failed".

Kids do not fail. The system fails, the parents fail, the politicians fail, boy do they fail, but our children are still a credit to us, and it is about time that we as a society told government what to do with the ideas that have blighted a generation!

For the cost of all the remedial measures is a drag on the total education budget.

Give the schools back to the teachers, let the parents know that discipline is expected, then let them all get on with it.

But do not maintain legal measures which ensure that struggling parents are handed a criminal record by an uncaring political system!

Your title "Not good enough", was correct. But it should be aimed at the polticians, not the schools kids and teachers in my opinion!

J Hill Chorley