WATCH TOWERS OVER THE SCHOOL YARD?
What a comment on the state of modern Britain.
Security guards will be able to search pupils for knives at the school gates without their consent under government guidance to be published today. Schools will also be able to use security arches and metal detector wands when they search pupils for violent weapons. Legislation passed last year giving teachers power to search pupils for knives and other offensive weapons without consent comes into effect today. But guidance to headteachers from the Department for Education and Skills, published for the first time today, shows how schools can use the new powers. It makes plain that screening and searching can be carried out by professionally trained security staff, as well as teachers. However, it adds that where there is any risk to safety, police should be called. Security guards would be asked by headteachers to do the work if they felt it necessary.
I heard some Labour MP being interviewed about this, and he thought it very natural, very modern even, to have Airport-style security in our schools. What is more, he couldn't really explain WHY our schools have gotten to the stage where they now require security arches and security guards. He did, however, express his HORROR over the fact that once upon a time, teachers were allowed to cane students who misbehaved. He had been caned himself but expressed his relief that we have now moved into more "enlightened" times. Hence the Security Guards. They just don't get it, do they? Good school discipline and a zero tolerance of bad behaviour is no longer compatible with our "Human Rights" culture, and so we simultaneously strip schools of the right to discipline whilst offering them the chance to put up security arches.
Confused? You bet.
David Vance
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Reader Comments (3)
America has long had guards, metal detectors etc., in its inner city schools. It was interesting, therefore, that in the present Grammar School row which has engulfed the Tories, the Cameroons (or Camerloons if you prefer) have cited education in America as being to the forefront of educational thinking and suggest, nay demand, that we should follow.
Although I am not a supporter of the cane I support indiscipline even less. The argument that to cane a child teaches them that violence is acceptable may be true but the lack of the cane does not seem to have lessened the incidence of violence in schools or on our streets. Something is wrong somewhere and I have a suspicion that the culture of Human Rights
is a factor.
When we treat our children like prisoners, how can we expect them not to act like prisoners? Corporal punishment, at least, is directed only at children who misbehave. At least they know they 'were asking for it'.
Being constantly under the watchful eyes of guards and cameras and being constantly scanned and searched makes everyone feel like a criminal all of the time.
But one has to wonder, in a world where a teacher can't even put a sticking plaster on a pupil's grazed knee without the parent's consent, will it even be legally possible for anyone except the police to search children, to pat them down? Can you really see teachers grabbing the crotches of young pupils to ensure there are no hidden weapons? If not, then what's the point? Because kids who want to carry weapons into school will just put them down their pants.
'When soundbites collide'
Blair's Great Legacy:
"Education Education Edication" and "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime."