School days, happy days

We endorse Education Minister Anthony Garcia’s stance of awaiting more suggestions and research into the matter before making a pronouncement. These considerations, for instance, must take into account the welfare of all stakeholders -pupils, teachers and parents - in questions of the quantity and quality of the lunch period, and in any fresh arrangements for pupils to get home safely if school closing hours were to be amended.

However, while we await such findings, we see this debate on the lunch period as an apt time to shine the spotlight on the broader notion of pupil wellbeing.

For example, we ask the simple question: are our children happy at school? Physical accommodation, structure of the school day, curriculum and teacher input are all key. While the principals’ association speaks of pupil discipline, this term may conjure up images of a regimentation imposed by external agencies such as teachers but we suggest that it should better be defined as an engagement in productive and peaceful activity that is largely driven by the pupil.

Many good ideas on how to improve student conduct are suggested in a recent report from Parliament’s Joint Select Committee (JSC) on Social Services and Public Administration on school bullying and the ministerial response document. In fact, we have only two real reservations. Firstly, the JSC report is largely presented in a punitive framework when instead we would have preferred it to be a statement encouraging positive behaviours. Secondly the constructive suggestions should not be viewed as “extras” to be appended onto existing school patterns but rather be placed at the very centre of the pupils’ day.

We list five recommendations of the JSC report to which such should apply - teachers to show a greater duty of care to pupils, teachers to use a range of teaching strategies to appeal to different types of pupil learners, pupils to have co-curricular and extra-curricular activities, parental involvement to be encouraged and student councils to express pupil concerns.

While the ministerial response suggested that after-school scheduling difficulties could lead to activities such as dance and drama being done during school hours, we would go one step further and say dance and drama (plus art) are quite apt areas by which to deliver other areas of the curriculum, such as having pupils act out a historical scene, or dance to show the scientific notion of Brownian Motion. The report’s suggestion of visits by adult role models such as national athletes, peer counselling and a prefect system can all also provide “softer” ways of achieving discipline among the student body.

Given that good habits must start from the top, we happily note the report’s suggestion for curbing teacher absenteeism by salary deductions for lateness and by noting punctuality when considering promotions. Far too many pupil fights occur when teachers are absent from the classroom, a practice of chronic proportions in some schools.

Getting our schooling system “right” is and will always be a work in progress, even as we welcome the inevitable broadening of the current debate on “lunch hour” to a mulling of all that obtains throughout the whole school day. Whatever the outcome of this latest debate on the lunch period, the results, must be grounded in making school days happy days for all concerned.