No staring out of the window! Why super-strict schools are on the rise
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Blind rule-following may improve grades but does it stamp out individuality? A teacher who has seen the results discusses the pros and cons.
By Lucy Kellaway
In my first term as a trainee teacher, I was standing at the front of the classroom trying to prove to a year 7 class that 0.1 is bigger than 0.0999. Unannounced, in walked a deputy principal who stood at the back, glowering.
After a few minutes she stopped the lesson. ‘Miss!’ she hissed. ‘Didn’t you see what just happened there? This young man [pointing at a luckless child in the front row] drank some water from his bottle!’ She removed the offending boy from the class and told me she would speak to me later.
This took place at one of the most famously strict schools in the country. The rules at this school are innumerable and mostly about very small things, including the stipulation that no child can have a sip of water in a lesson without permission.
As a strip was torn off the boy, he looked as if he was going to cry. Had I...
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