When a couple of people does something wrong what would you normally expect to be the reaction. Would you tell the people involved off and ban them or take some similar appropriate action to ensure that the problem is nipped in the bud. Or would you ban everyone no matter that they weren’t involved or even knew about the incident and do your best not to upset the protagonists.

If you were a strong willed person with experience and knowledge about how to handle tough situations you would do the former. If you are weak willed person whose training is all about “conflict negotiation” where you are trained to “respect rights” and told that “no one should lose” you will take the later.

In a recent case this was highlighted quite dramatically. At a Cardiff primary school a couple of parents got into a bit of a swearing match which degenerated a fight with objects being thrown.

Now this could be upsetting to many of the children because not all parents are that bad at home. So it right that such behaviour should be stopped. So the proper action would be get children out of the environment as quickly as possible and to attempt to defuse the situation by intervening. The police should also be called because is could be argued that the parents are committing a public order offence. The adults involved in the affray would also be warned not to enter the school premises together, maybe by recommending different times for them to arrive at the school. The should also be warned that a repeat offence would definitely involve the police and other legal repercussions.

What you don’t do is write a letter from the safety of your office to all parents stopping all of them from walking with their children into the school yard where many of the parents meet up for a quick chat. This means that parents have to stand on chat on the pavement causing an obstruction to many other parents and potentially irritating and annoying them. Naturally this will lead to heightened emotions which could easily be triggered by officious staff who try to impose a rule which is seen as stupid by a reasonable person. The result of this could easily be threats to staff. In reality the threats are probably words like “why are stopping me from walking my kids into school, something I have done for many years” but in the politically correct education world are perceived as threats to cause physical harm to the member of staff.

The result of not handling the situation in an authoritative manner right from the start means that from a single controllable incident the situation has degraded to involve a lot more people than there should have been. Including the police (well fake police, PCSOs) attending the school twice a day.

Because the ban on all parents continues “until the behaviour by a small minority of parents ceases permanently” there is no obvious end to the problem. How is the school going to measure the behaviour when there is no behaviour at all on school grounds. How permanently is permanently?

So staff, with the help of police, will have to keep adults out of the school yard for the foreseeable future until a few adults are allowed due to friendship with the staff to enter or some other exceptions are allowed. But this will take time. In the meantime the costs, both emotionally (annoyed parents) and financially (police presence) will be high but the school can wash their hands of the problem because it will never happen in their sphere of influence again.

What kind of message does that give to the children?

SBML

Single Acts of
Tyranny November 1, 2011 at 11:17

If the parents simply ignore the rule en masse, it becomes unenforceable.
This is the way to deal with nonsense like this.

I hate to say this, but I am from Cardiff originally, I know the area and
am not entirely surprised by the incident.

Mjolinir November 1, 2011 at 04:00

Being unable to control the guilty, the school controls the innocent- and
ensures that any future incidents occur outside the school so can be ignored
as SEP (“Somebody Else’s Problem” – see Wiki & HHGG)

john malpas October 31, 2011 at 21:55

What happens if my big bruvvers comes with me to school. Or even more
alarming- my big sister.
They are not parents and they is well hard.

Michael October 31, 2011 at 19:57

Yep, we’ve known a head like that. Useless with people but great at
pretending to be an efficient manager and climbing the greasy pole. Ours used
to send the caretaker out to deal with parents.

Engineer October 31, 2011 at 18:18

Maybe the reasonable parents should refuse en masse to send their children
to the school in question until the headteacher is replaced by someone with a
common sense attitude to human interaction.

Woman on a
Raft October 31, 2011 at 20:44

Interesting to note, though, that teachers have been obliged to come out
from behind the desks (where I’d hide if I were them, too) and escort
children in to class.

The convention of having parents deliver children to the door is
relatively recent and stems from schools being unwilling to accept legal
responsibility until the ring of the bell.

ivan October 31, 2011 at 17:01

This is very like the famous quotation, ‘The beatings will continue until
morale improves’ which was, I think, supposed to be facetious.

JuliaM October
31, 2011 at 17:12

And now is considered SOP…

Demetrius October
31, 2011 at 17:00

At my Elementary School the Headteacher had a a policeman’s truncheon which
she knew how to use. There was never any trouble with parents, or for that
matter anyone else.

Mudplugger
November 1, 2011 at 19:57

Yes, our Headmistress was a spinster too !

Mike October 31, 2011 at 16:38

Can’t help thinking that most of the kids will be mightily relieved to get
their playground back.

What kid, in his or her right mind, want a load of interfering, over
protective, parents hanging about at play time and getting in the way?

Bad enough having all those bloody teachers snooping around.

Super Sam October 31, 2011 at 15:02

“Head teacher Sian Wyn Thomas said in a letter that all parents have been
banned from the yard due to the behaviour of “a small minority”.

That small minority being the one Sian Wyn Thomas.

As I’ve posted elsewhere, we are in a ‘bull market’ in stupidty (running in
parallel with the bear market in the economy).

JuliaM October
31, 2011 at 17:11

Well, punishing the whole class because you don’t want to single out the
one who scrawled ‘Miss Thomas is a cow!’ on the toilet wall works so well
with the children, why not extend it to the adults?

Super Sam
October 31, 2011 at 20:57

Actually, I scrawled ‘Miss Thomas is a cow!’ (or similar*), except on
the blackboard just before class. Nowadays I guess it would be a
whiteboard. Are we even allowed to use the words whiteboard and blackboard
any longer?

More seriously, these knee jerk reactions have the effect of handing
power to the minority who do cause trouble – so the wilful child can
punish the whole class; the (failed) terrorist can subject most of the
world to intrusive travel security. Just go “boo!” and those with power
jump … on us, the majority law abiding public.

*Actually it was a joint effort, I was just the attention seeking fool
who did the deed with class consent. We all sat through detention fairly
happily. The teacher in question was actually a cow.