School which makes naughty pupils wear signs around necks
Students punished ‘if their shoes are too shiny’
PUPILS are being forced to wear signs around their necks for breaking rules in what parents have branded ‘Britain’s strictest school’.
Merchants’ Academy in Withywood, Bristol, is making scruffy pupils wear lanyards as part of a crackdown on behaviour.
But ironically, staff don’t seem to be applying high standards to their own work – with one badge reading ‘I have 24 hours to sort out my uniform out’.
The school is also punishing pupils for having shoes which are too shiny, tapping tables and even looking at the clock, parents say.
Those displaying ‘ persistent’ poor behaviour can also be sent to the ‘isolation room’ for five lessons, which includes a 15-minute detention at the end of the day.
Parents say up to 100 pupils have been kept in isolation for flouting the code of conduct since it was imposed a fortnight before the end of term. The school said the new rules are necessary to combat ‘low-level disruption’ which can ‘negatively affect progress’.
Petula Peacock, 49, who has children at the school, sent an angry letter to the headteacher, Nick Short. She said: ‘The head has started off this policy which has caused absolute uproar. We are talking hundreds of kids in isolation. They are just trying to prove a point. It’s stuff like making a girl wear a lanyard for wearing the wrong colour hairband.’
A 17-page document has been issued on the school website detailing the ‘Behaviour for Learning’ policy. It states that those placed in isolation will have a ‘restorative justice meeting’ with a member of staff.
Pupils who do not complete isolation according to the rules will be excluded, the booklet warns. Yesterday, parents claimed one girl was taken to task over shoes which were ‘too shiny’ and instead was forced to wear a replacement pair which was too small.
Amanda Cawston wrote online: ‘It appears the punishments are rather harsh and don’t really fit the “crime”. It’s also a possibility that a parent might only be able to afford the black shiny shoes in Primark as opposed to the proper school shoes in Clarks.’
Geoff Brodie wrote: ‘Isn’t this what the Nazi party did – making people wear signs? You would have thought that the school would have had a history teacher to point this out to them.’
But Helen Sharpe wrote: ‘ Too many wishy-washy parents nowadays have resulted in a generation of self- entitled teens who think the rules don’t apply to them.’
The school is rated ‘ good’ by Ofsted and has an above-average proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals – the Government’s measure of poverty. Headteacher Mr Short said: ‘Lowlevel disruption in class is known to negatively affect the progress and attainment of students.
‘As a result, Merchants’ Academy introduced a new Positive Behaviour policy, designed to minimise and remove low-level disruption from lessons, allowing for higher levels of engagement and more progress to be made by all students.’ He added: ‘Since the new policy was implemented, staff and students are reporting much higher levels of engagement in class, with many students making more progress as a result of significantly lower levels of disruption.
Merchants’ Academy is an allthrough school for children aged three to 18 and has 1,045 pupils.
The strict new ‘Ready to Learn Policy’ – which involves isolation and signs as punishments – are for secondary school age pupils only.
However, primary age pupils can be put in lunchtime detention if they are naughty.