EDUCATION SCHOOL RULES
✒
would be on the fi rst train home. Parents in those days never changed is the rule that you cannot climb the
expected no less. Now, because most parents are themselves big beech tree in the garden when it is dark or wet,”
children of the Sixties, a more nuanced approach tends to says headmistress Zoe Readhead. “The rule is just
be adopted: warnings, fi nal warnings, random drug tests, plain common sense.”
professional counselling; pastoral care 21st-century style, not Summerhill pupils do not have to wear
the big stick. Schools cannot afford to expel large numbers of uniforms, but in drawing up other rules are more
pupils or send them home for a week, missing vital lessons. conservative than you might expect. Pupils are woken
Head teachers have always had to juggle principle and at eight sharp and have to be up by half-past eight.
pragmatism. At the all-boys Catholic boarding school which I Occasionally, a relaxation of the rules is forced through, but
attended in the 1970s, one boy was expelled after being caught it is not long before sanity returns. Similarly, pupils who want
in bed with a girl. Boys caught in bed with other boys could to stay up all hours are outnumbered by pupils who realise
expect no more than a slap on the wrist. “At least there is no that rules and regulations are necessary in any well-ordered
risk of pregnancy,” the headmaster would say, without batting community. Give children responsibility and they will act
an eyelid. At quite a few schools where boys and girls come responsibly. The pupil-legislators of Summerhill decree that it
into regular contact, there is fi ne to take your lunch
is a ‘six-inch rule’: six inches
“T_h e rules provide a structure: they
outside in the summer,
being as close as you can get but you MUST bring your
to a pupil of the opposite sex. cannot guarantee a stress-free envi- plates and cutlery back
But it would be a very stupid
teacher who tried to police
ronment, still less transform spoiled
inside afterwards: that is
only fair to the kitchen
the rule with a tape-measure.
brats into model pupils”
staff. And smoking is not
A culture of mutual allowed on school premises,
respect is what matters, and school rules need to refl ect changing not because it is against the rules, but because it is anti-social.
times. At Summerhill, a famously free-and-easy boarding school For Readhead, the big mistake made by more conventional
in Suffolk, it is the pupils who decide on the rules, voting on schools is to draw up rules to suit teachers, not pupils. “Most
them at twice-weekly meetings. There is a continual process of the stuff kids care about is pretty small beer: what they are
of tinkering, as new rules are passed, amended, repealed, then allowed to wear, what sort of biscuits they eat. There is no need
re-introduced two years later. “Just about the only rule that has for an elaborate structure of adult-centred rules.” %
Silly school rules – the students have their say!
What not to wear: 3%0$
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AS POSTED ON WWW.THESTUDENTROOM.COM
30 FIRST ELEVEN SPRING 2010 WWW.FIRSTELEVENMAGAZINE.CO.UK
pp28-30FESPR10 FeatureSchool RulesSMsub2.indd 30 28/1/10 17:41:22
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