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Bad students may soon be punished in new and more aggressive ways if the Department of Education has its way.
New documents released on the 22nd have been making the rounds, and these include an intuitive to allow teachers and principals to use “reasonable force” to implement behavioral changes in their students.
“Reasonable force” sounds less like what should be going on in schools and more like what they teach new police officers.
The Department of Education (DfE) in the UK doesn’t use the term reasonable force in a violent or aggressive way but instead is trying to give more powers back to the teachers in the classroom.
This will not just allow but encourage teachers to do things like confiscate cell phones or ban them entirely from their classrooms. It also gives the schools more leeway and guidance on outright expelling students who pose a problem in the classroom or for the school.
It also appears that schools will have more government support for searching through student’s belongings looking for illegal or dangerous items, and the use of in-school same-day detentions or out of school suspensions.
Recent polls suggest that the public actually supports more discipline and structure within the school system, so experts are expecting these new changes to be welcomed and embraced.
This document came out just days after a report that said kids as young as 4 were bringing illegal or dangerous items into schools. Over 1,000 students were caught with items that were dangerous to themselves or others last year.
One major worry about giving the schools more ability to punish or expel problem students is creating a higher rate of what is called “permanent exclusion” students, or students that can no longer attend that school altogether. In more rural areas or for poorer families that cannot travel to take their children elsewhere, this would cause a huge burden.
Reasonable force isn’t the only thing that this paper has in it, though it is the most inflammatory.
A total of £3.5 billion in funding should come through for school systems, with £2.8 billion of that going to primary and secondary schools, and £800 million for special needs students.
Teachers should see a rise in their salaries as well, with starting salaries expected to be £30,000 by 2022.
