It is astonishing that Tom Bennett’s independent review of behaviour in English schools, commissioned by the government, refers only in passing to restorative practices (Headteachers accused of trying to cover up pupils’ bad behaviour, 25 March).
We need our schools to foster respect for others and this involves getting people – children, teachers and parents – to take responsibility for their actions and make amends for any harm caused. Such a restorative approach has been shown to be far more powerful in creating a positive school ethos than dishing out punishments.
Talking things through takes time, but if we are to address bullying, racism, vandalism, violence, rudeness and lesson disruption in schools, children need to understand the impact of their behaviour on others. This is rarely achieved by staying late at the end of the day. The majority of secondary schools still use detention to address negative behaviour but where is the evidence that it works?
Restorative justice has been shown to be a powerful lever for change in the criminal justice system. Those schools up and down the country that have introduced a whole-school restorative approach have reported significant improvements in behaviour. It is surely time for a change of tack.
Fiona Carnie
Alternatives in Education, Bath
• Headteachers have been thoroughly tested over years as classroom teachers, department heads, then assistant and deputy head teachers, before the huge responsibilities of running a school typically populated with 1,000 young souls and 60 or so sharp-witted teachers. We can be certain that heads make decisions by drawing on a deep fund of thought and experience exactly relevant to these responsibilities. Tom Bennett’s advice to treat lateness always as misbehaviour might recommend him to the sterile world of Ofsted checklists but hardly to the educational concerns of practising school teachers.
Miles Secker
Heckington, Lincolnshire
• That headteachers should try to cover up bad behaviour is no surprise. Behaviour is a key component of the Ofsted ordeal. Pupils’ bad behaviour can perhaps be explained thus: Ofsted piles on the pressure for good exam results, the school’s senior leaders pile pressure on their middle managers, they pile pressure on the subject teachers. Thus schooling is often turned into a joyless exam factory, against which some pupils rebel.
This may not be the only reason for bad behaviour but it is a powerful component. That the mental health of school students is rising up the agenda comes as no surprise either.
David Handley
Gargrave, Yorkshire
• Although there are many valuable lessons and ideas contained in the Bennett report, it is a shame that of the 15 case studies from schools, only four are from schools north of London and all of them from the same Manchester primary. Surely there are many schools nationwide with examples of good practice?
Toby Wood
Peterborough, Cambridgeshire
• I am a governor in a Catholic primary school, and one of our guiding values is for each pupil to be kind and respectful to each other. So to hear that Prince George is to attend a “kind” private school is to be welcomed (Report, 25 March). But what if a state primary could have been selected for his formative years? With the level of security required to protect him, this presumably is out of the question. Shame, because to play and learn with children from less advantaged backgrounds would be so very valuable for his future life.
Judith Daniels
Great Yarmouth, Norfolk
• You report that those attending Prince George’s private primary school, Thomas’s Battersea, “go on to win places at top public schools Bryanston, Marlborough and Bradfield”. How does that happen? Raffle?
Martin Thomas
Old Colwyn, Conwy
• The proposed introduction of mental health first aid training in secondary schools in England (Mental health problems rife among teenagers but teachers lack skills to help, theguardian.com, 26 March) would address the symptoms of young people’s distress, not the cause. The cause is the disease of competitiveness; so imbued in society that most accept it as normal. To prepare our children for the world of work, it is necessary, it is argued, for them to undergo this stress.
Worryingly, things are set to get worse for this generation: 10 million UK workers are at high risk of being replaced by robots within 15 years (Report, 24 March).
Competition always produces losers. If we are to survive as a healthy, cohesive society, children’s education should be teaching the benefits of cooperation in all things. With this everyone is a winner, and a just social and economic system would develop.
Geoff Naylor
Winchester, Hampshire
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