When it comes to behaviour policies, schools have fallen into two extremes. Across the border in Scotland, schools practise ‘restorative justice’: a relationships-based, non-punitive approach that favours constructive conversations over traditional sanctions. On the flip side, academies across England are adopting an authoritarian, zero-tolerance approach, where detentions are given for minor infractions and routines are enforced with military precision. Yesterday, one school in Harlow hit the headlines for giving detentions to top set pupils who score less than 90 per cent in maths tests: another controversial academy policy flown under the banner of ‘high expectations’.
Being educated is not about giving up joy but finding joy in new things
Clearly, the latter works. Scotland’s schools are diving in league tables and facing an ‘aggression epidemic’, whilst the results of notoriously strict schools like Michaela and King Solomon Academy in London speak for themselves. Zero-tolerance means zero time wasted, and this ‘every second counts’ mentality stops the eroding effects of low-level disruption that chips away at so many classrooms. These schools create amazing achievements in difficult circumstances. Yet whilst much is to be gained from silent, single-file corridors and rote-learning chants, perhaps something is also lost: joy.
A few weeks ago, a video circulated on X of the assistant principal of Ark Soane Academy in West Ealing teaching a Chemistry lesson. It’s full of impeccably ingrained routines: ruler reading, rehearsed responses (‘I say, you say’), direct instruction, whole-class repetition, practiced behaviours like crossing your arms if you are not putting your hands up. It’s a masterclass in SLANT teaching (Sit up, Listen, Ask and answer questions, Nod your head, Track the speaker). The atmosphere is calm, purposeful and clear, and I am sure his students get excellent results.
Nonetheless, it is also deeply depressing. All of these rigid drills leave no space for creativity, curiosity, spontaneity, personality or self-expression. Where is the enjoyment, the childlike wonder? Children at super-strict schools are engaged in that they know what is expected of them and can robotically respond to teacher cues, but this focus on performative obedience and unquestioning compliance is a means to an end. Lessons that are austere, serious and inflexible may get good grades, but it’s hard to see how they can foster higher-order skills like critical thinking, or a lifelong love of learning. Students may have fathoms of factual knowledge, but can they actually think for themselves?
Pleasure and play are extremely motivating, and are needed in academic subjects more than ever now there are fewer opportunities for students to enjoy other outlets like music, drama, art or PE. That is not to say all lessons should be fun: students need to tolerate boredom and teachers are instructors, not entertainers.
Yet kids need to want to learn. You can force a child to stay in their seat, to fill out a worksheet, to rote-learn a poem, to retake a maths test if they don’t get 90 per cent or more. Yet you can’t force them to think outside the box, problem-solve, collaborate, evaluate complex information, formulate their own opinions – unless they find pleasure in learning. Being educated is not about giving up joy but finding joy in new things: reading novels, conducting experiments, debating serious issues, making things, working together, asking questions.
Some may contend that super-strict schools foster joy – or in the very least satisfaction – in other ways: in predictability, in knowing that you are safe, or that you can learn without disruption. These schools bring order and boundaries to students who may not have them in other areas of their lives. Yet the more difficult a child’s life circumstances are, the more important it is that they can find joy – as well as discipline – in school. UK pupils are already among the world’s unhappiest, with a recent survey finding that less than half of students say they are happy in school. Increasingly oppressive regimes – I know one school where students are banned from looking out of the window – are hardly going to help matters.
I wonder how much these ultra-strict schools are fuelling anxiety and the rise in home-schooling, particularly for neurodivergent pupils. I also wonder how they are affecting teacher recruitment and retention. Whilst some teachers are evangelical about the transformative powers of academies, there is no denying that large academy trusts have disproportionately high staff turnover. I know plenty of teachers who have left seemingly high-performing schools because they disliked the centralised, formulaic lesson plans; the constant negative reinforcement; being forced to stick to a script.
There has to be a middle ground between chaos in the corridors and stony-faced silence. Draconian regimes are not the only dependable route to academic success: I cannot think of a single private school that micromanages behaviour to such an extent. Just because a student is born into deprivation does not mean the only way to teach them is to treat them like a detainee. Super-strict schools get plenty of media attention, but we also need to showcase schools that prove that success and self-expression do not have to be mutually exclusive.
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