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My Secondary School was described by some of those looking from the outside in as "An Exam Factory" - i.e. it was obsessed with results and league tables, in fact, it was at the time - early to late 1990's - the best performing Comprehensive in the area.
In order to hit these targets, our school had some rather draconian, or at least, over the top rules, which were a bit over and beyond what other schools that my friends attended at the same time contended with.
e.g. If you wanted a part-time job (such as Saturday work in a shop, or even just a paper round), you had to get a "Work Permit" from the school, and signed off by the head of year. If you was considered to be underperforming in your studies, this would be revoked, and anyone caught or seen working by the staff would be punished (a snotty letter to your parents or similar). Similarly, those who were expected to excel at their subjects would be denied this permit, as it was felt it would interfere with their studies and have a detrimental effect on their performances in the classroom.
Every pupil in our school had to do something which would benefit another pupil, or the wider school community, during a lunch hour, or after school. This would be something like helping younger students with "paired reading" or learning spellings; and those less academically gifted, plus the younger pupils would be allocated a manual job, such as cleaning, putting up displays or doing duties in the dining hall (being "Tray Monitors" or similar). I suppose the idea of this was to further discipline and command respect, but for most, it was seen as a further intrusion into the time which pupils should have had to let off steam.
Parent/school interaction was through "Homework Diaries" - I know some schools had these purely as a disciplinary measure, solely for those who had misbehaved, but our school had them from day one in Year 7, and even into sixth form. These were to be checked and signed off by parents and the form tutors each week. Some teachers seemed to take great delight in scrawling comments in red pen across Homework Diaries for the slightest mishap in class, often unfairly, as whole classes were punished with these comments if only one or two idiots had been causing the trouble. (My tactic was to get my mum to sign the diary just as she was leaving for work on a Monday morning, so she didn't have time to scrutinise the damned thing!)
The idea of this thread is to see if other schools had similar, or other regimented practices which were out of line with those of their friends at other schools at the same time. I suppose none of the above did me any harm, but it all seemed (and still seems, looking back) rather power-hungry.
In order to hit these targets, our school had some rather draconian, or at least, over the top rules, which were a bit over and beyond what other schools that my friends attended at the same time contended with.
e.g. If you wanted a part-time job (such as Saturday work in a shop, or even just a paper round), you had to get a "Work Permit" from the school, and signed off by the head of year. If you was considered to be underperforming in your studies, this would be revoked, and anyone caught or seen working by the staff would be punished (a snotty letter to your parents or similar). Similarly, those who were expected to excel at their subjects would be denied this permit, as it was felt it would interfere with their studies and have a detrimental effect on their performances in the classroom.
Every pupil in our school had to do something which would benefit another pupil, or the wider school community, during a lunch hour, or after school. This would be something like helping younger students with "paired reading" or learning spellings; and those less academically gifted, plus the younger pupils would be allocated a manual job, such as cleaning, putting up displays or doing duties in the dining hall (being "Tray Monitors" or similar). I suppose the idea of this was to further discipline and command respect, but for most, it was seen as a further intrusion into the time which pupils should have had to let off steam.
Parent/school interaction was through "Homework Diaries" - I know some schools had these purely as a disciplinary measure, solely for those who had misbehaved, but our school had them from day one in Year 7, and even into sixth form. These were to be checked and signed off by parents and the form tutors each week. Some teachers seemed to take great delight in scrawling comments in red pen across Homework Diaries for the slightest mishap in class, often unfairly, as whole classes were punished with these comments if only one or two idiots had been causing the trouble. (My tactic was to get my mum to sign the diary just as she was leaving for work on a Monday morning, so she didn't have time to scrutinise the damned thing!)
The idea of this thread is to see if other schools had similar, or other regimented practices which were out of line with those of their friends at other schools at the same time. I suppose none of the above did me any harm, but it all seemed (and still seems, looking back) rather power-hungry.
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