by Tarot

Created on: January 26, 2009

This is a rough proposal to improve the education system for England and those parts of the UK whose education system is not devolved; it is not an academic paper but is more of a proposed political policy.

The main problems with the education system can be separated into three areas; Discipline, or lack of; Funding issues; and the curriculum itself. I will discuss each separately in terms of a series of measures.

Discipline relates to the behaviour of students in schools and the issues of youth violence, crime but this discussion will focus on the need for effective punishment within the education system, at home, and ensuring that children are raised in as healthy an environment as possible. When I discuss funding and curriculum their will be additional measures related to this subject.

The first step is to ensure that parents are free to use reasonable chastisement on their children to enforce discipline, this does not mean turning our backs on child abuse but it also means that parents should be able to smack their children as a punishment if their behaviour warrants it without being arrested. This means clarifying the law and ensuring that social services, teachers. medical services, the police and most importantly the general public understands those laws so that they are aware of how far they can go but it also means educating parents about effective methods of disciplining children, this will be discussed further later.

A major problem I face at school is that the students know their rights and they know that if they sit down and refuse to acknowledge us their is nothing we can do about it! Teachers and school supervisors need greater power to inflict effective punishments on school students of all ages and the power to search and restrain students when the need arises. AAt present, the worst punishments available are detention, exclusion from regular classes and exclusion from the school for a period of days or permanent exclusion. I will get to exclusion from school in a later paragraph. Detentions are an appropriate punishment for some behaviour but are often used for serious incidents like fighting and serious bullying, while you have to call a teacher stupid to be excluded from the school. Removal to the inclusion room normally means you spend a day or half a day working in private in the exclusion room, but you are let out for a time at lunch to go to the canteen or more often to run around the school talking to your mates, this may be good for the

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