EDUCATION SCHOOL RULES
Carrot
or stick?
School rules are often tested to the limit by pupils. Max Davidson
asks: How far can they go?
J
ohn Claughton, chief master smartest school and you will see that a degree of latitude is
of King Edward’s School, granted. Teachers pounce on pierced navels, but turn a blind
Birmingham, reckons “school eye to ties that are not properly done up. And they would be
rules are the least of my problems. mad not to. Come down too heavily on non-conformists and
I never give the rules a second thought,” he you are making a rod for your own back.
continues. “Occasionally, I have to give boys ‘Have you ever noticed – all the goodie-goodies who look
a telling-off for missing a rugby match, or like princesses at school are the first to rip off their ties when
something like that. But in terms of general they go into town?” says the mother of a girl at an independent
discipline, a good school runs itself.” school fabled for its starchy uniform, which has barely changed
On paper, the rules at King Edward’s are since the 1950s. “Rules can only constrain children so far.
numerous and byzantine. No smoking, no There has to be healthy give-and-take between staff and pupils.”
jewellery, no brightly-coloured socks, no As with dress codes, so with school rules generally. The
running in corridors, no wandering off-limits rules provide a structure: they cannot guarantee a stress-free
during lunch hour. Boys cycling to school to wear helmets. Ties environment or transform spoiled brats into model pupils. The
to be clearly visible. Satchels and briefcases to be marked with better the school, the more discipline tends to look after itself.
the owner’s name. All the usual dos and don’ts. But this is an “Intelligent boys are intelligent,” says Dr Christopher Ray, high
educational community, not a police state. master of Manchester Grammar School. “They know not to
On the sliding scale of punishments, the most serious, do things that will put their place at the school in jeopardy.”
short of expulsion, is “chief Day boys in a big
master’s detention”, held
“No smoking, no jewellery, no
city like Manchester are
at 9.30am on a Saturday inevitably going to come
morning. It lasts two hours brightly coloured socks, no running across recreational drugs at
and you have to turn up in parties they attend at the
full school uniform. But
in corridors, no wandering off-limits
weekend. But if they were
it is very rarely invoked.
during lunch hour!”
caught dealing drugs at the
Claughton attended King school, they would be out
Edward’s himself in the 1970s and points out that even then, on their ear; while there is a tough random testing regime for
the regime was hardly spartan. “If you look at old photos, a previous offenders, with no second chance.
lot of the boys had shoulder-length hair because that was the Dr Ray, like many heads, is reluctant to be too much of a
fashion beyond the school gates. The chief master realised that disciplinarian. “If the teachers at school were too heavy-handed,
there were limits to his authority.” they would put at risk the relaxed, easy-going relationship with
T
O
Only totalitarian states insist on perfect conformity. In pupils – one of the hallmarks of a good school. The cornerstone
O
H
P
K
recent years, there has been a trend for schools to introduce of our disciplinary system is that boys should respect each other
C
T
O
stricter dress codes than was the norm ten years ago. If pupils as individuals.”
:
I
S
S
T
O scrub up well, they will also behave more considerately and At many independent schools, there used to be a zero-
O
H
P do better in exams – or that is the theory. But go to even the tolerance attitude towards drugs: any pupil caught smoking pot ✒
WWW.FIRSTELEVENMAGAZINE.CO.UK SPRING 2010 FIRST ELEVEN 29
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