BBC NEWS | Education | Head teacher takes home computers
A head teacher is taking children’s computers and TVs from their bedrooms in an effort to improve behaviour.
Duncan Harper, of New Woodlands School, which deals with pupils excluded from other primary schools in Lewisham, south London, said standards had risen.
Parents gave permission for him to enter their houses after he told them pupils were arriving tired and irritable every morning.
Words fail me on so many different levels. Parents giving up their authority to teachers, because they feel that they can’t deal with their children themselves? I understand that these are children who have been excluded from normal schools but even so, surely it is still supposed to be the family that is the family iyswim, rather than the head teacher!
Left this when I wrote it earlier, have come back tonight, and still can’t form coherent arguments. So here you go, discuss if you like.
Comments
4 responses to “BBC NEWS | Education | Head teacher takes home computers”
the only thing I can think of is that by letting the head teacher remove the stuff it’s him that’s the bad guy of the piece not the parents. they can do the “it’s not my decision, blame your teacher” and thus duck out on any whining/stroppiness etc. What startled me was that it’s PRIMARY school kids already excluded from schools….. not hormonally bad tempered teens. On that point words really do fail me…..
I think it is fairly typical of the growing idea that parents can’t parent and need assistence from a band of interfering busybodies. The family is becoming eroded by government policies of one form or another. Frankly I think it is nothing to do with school if a child has a computer or T.V in their bedroom. It is up to the parents to decide if they use it too much and act accordingly. Also they probably learn more off the computer than in the classroom anyway.vbg.
I think kids shouldn’t have computers or tvs in their bedrooms. I’ll probably get jumped on for that opinion, but when you’re talking primary age pupils, there’s no reason for them to need a tv in their rooms. After all, you don’t want them watching the kind of stuff that goes on air after they should be in bed.
Yes, I’m old fashioned, and yes, I loathe tv anyhow; but you can’t trust a 9 year old not to switch the puter or idiot box on after he’s been sent to bed and watch Eurotrash until midnight.
I agree with t-bird, in that by having/letting the headmaster do the removing, it makes him the ‘baddy’ in the scenario and the parents can say it’s not their fault. Even though it is for letting them have the contraptions in the bedrooms in the first place. Maybe they didn’t have the backbone to go against their kids’ demands in the first place, and needed the ‘authority’ figure to take charge.
Rambling now. 🙂
I agree with you actually – probably for a whole bunch of other reasons, but my kids don’t have tech stuff in their room.
I just disagree with giving up home time and home place authority to school.
Kind of like I wouldn’t take kindly to my boss coming into my house and pulling the plug on the tv ‘cos I’m watching it too late – what I do on my time is my time and between me and my family.
Now who is rambling?