It’s an all too common story; a school somewhere has just enforced a nonsensical ban on some harmless item or activity for no apparent reason other than to show that they can.
With closer attention and scrutiny paid towards educational policy these days, the pressure is high for schools to provide as productive and safe a school environment as possible, which can only be a good thing. However, this pressure can sometimes lead to confused educators unsure on how to go about making the appropriate changes and coming up with policies that don’t seem to make any sense and, in some cases, even seem counter-productive. This is perhaps most notorious with the ‘school ban’.
One recent example is the ‘whistle ban’ at St. Monica’s Catholic Primary School in Milton Keynes, where a ban on whistles at the end of recess (because of their ‘aggressive’ nature) drew a dumbfounded response from teachers, pupils and, once the media caught wind of the ban, the general public. A letter on the event, published in Country Life magazine, came from a teaching assistant at the school expressing her bemusement with the decision: “We now have to raise a hand in the air and hope that the children, all 120 of them, can see it and stop playing.”
Such a ban represents an unrealistic approach to looking after children, mollycoddling them to such an extent as to prepare them for an unrealistic and sheltered existence. The fact the school expects children in the midst of playtime activity to spot a quietly raised hand (and the assumption that the children are unable to deal with the ‘aggressive’ nature of the noise), can only lead to a more chaotic situation for teaching assistants trying to get the children under control and into class.
Another example was an infamous ban on triangular flapjacks several years ago at Castle View School in Essex: after one pupil was hit in the eye by one (receiving a minor injury which required no medical attention), the school responded by banning triangular-shaped flapjacks being prepared by the catering staff, absurdly placing the blame on the sharp corners of the snack rather than the actual act of throwing it across the lunch hall.
This doesn’t necessarily mean all school bans are prime examples of nonsense decision-making; the press often places a negative spin on any kind of ban simply because these kind of stories are almost always guaranteed to get a strong reaction from the reader. One example being the reported ‘ban’ on clapping at Elanora Heights Public School in Australia; pupils were told to ‘punch the air, pull excited faces and wriggle about on the spot’ instead of clapping at the end of assemblies; a policy which sounds ridiculous when taken at face value. Looking into the story further however, reveals that the ban only applied to certain assemblies that were attended by a disabled staff member with a sensitivity to loud noises. At most assemblies, clapping was still the norm.
Another ‘ban’ misrepresented by the media was one on the school-yard game ‘Tag’ at Christ the King School. Banning a classic schoolyard game that has existed for years without incident seems like a cut and dry case of overzealous policy-making. What most news sources failed to mention was that rather than Tag being banned, it was only discouraged by the school during the winter months while the school field was closed; the regular playground being too small and slippery for such games to be carried out safely.
Some other bans might be slightly more ambiguous on whether they are overstepping the mark. Slang-use was banned at Harns Academy Upper Norwood, even outside of the classroom. Ungrammatical words such as ‘bare’, ‘safe’, ‘innit’ were not allowed within school jurisdiction. While this caused many people to question if this was a step too far in it’s authoritarianism, it was backed by some solid reasoning; promoting behavior and conduct from students that is to be expected of them in other areas of life in the future. Harns Academy Upper Norwood, which was previously considered a failing school, would later go on to receive top marks from Ofsted after the ban, suggesting that, at least in some capacity, it seemed to work.
While banning slang from schools might not be everybody’s idea of sound policy-making, it is at least a good example of a thoughtful policy with realistic focus towards improving the quality of the education given and is a reminder of how not all school-bans can be considered as random knee-jerk acts of authoritarianism, despite how the media might want to present it as.