Children "susoended" for kissing at school

[Hulababy]

Here

Eight school children in Wiltshire have been suspended after protesting against a ban on "canoodling".
Children at Warneford School in Highworth, were told they were not allowed to kiss, hold hands or hug.

Several refused to return to classes last Friday lunchtime in protest, and held a rally in the playing field.

Headmaster John Saunders said the eight were suspended for being rude to staff and not because they contravened the "canoodling" rule.

'Light-hearted'

He said the ban was aimed at instilling "appropriate behaviour" in pupils.

"We were reminding the pupils of a rule that already exists. It was fairly light-hearted," said Mr Saunders.

"We have a school council through which the pupils can express their views, but on this occasion they chose to make a protest in a different way."

The school has around 900 pupils aged between 11 and 16.



Any thoughts?

[jampot]

agree that kissing, canoodling etc should not be allowed at school for fear of things getting out of hand as it were. However hormones are running quite high by secondary school and there surely has to be a lapse every so often? Don't think I ever kissed/canoodled at school but then again I didn't smoke either.

[MeanBean]

Quite right too. Next thing they'll be fornicating on the netball court. It's like the decline of the Roman Empire. Boundaries, please.

[Gomez]

I wish I had been cool enought to canoodle at school! Unfortunately I was ginger, freckly and porkey so didn't often get the chance!

[hmb]

Well in our local, higly sucessful 100% A-C at GCSE a couple were suspended for 2 weeks. The give was giving the boy a hand job in a lesson. So you could be right meanbean. I did think it was a long time since you were in a secondary school, you have no idea of some of the more unpleasent things tha go on. One of my form was suspended for offering sex to one of the builders on the site. A finacial transaction you understand.

[Hulababy]

OMG hmb!!!!

[lou33]

Bloody hell

[clairabelle]

bloody hell what is the youth of today coming to?

[jampot]

HMB

[pixiefish]

hmb- lovely to see you. What a motley crew eh!
Apart for anything else it's not nice for staff to have to see- or I spose the other kids for that matter. Every summer term our year 9's hormones seem to kick in and there are many couples scattered around the playground necking. They don't come in on the bell and we staff have to go and round them up. It is seriosly not nice and not something I particularly want to see mid morning. I'd love it if our school bought in such a ban HAving said that I also dislike seeing people necking on the street- it's something that should be kept for private moments.

[nikkim]

I taught a girl whose parents had to be called in to school for giving a lad a blow job on a school trip. When she was asked why she did what she did she replied
"well his leg was in plaster so I was hardly gonna shag him was I?"

[MeanBean]

Unbelievable! But I think part of the problem is the structure of education actually. It's totally inappropriate for an 11 year old to be in the same institution as an 18 year old. It is such a different life-stage, and it does make me wonder whose idea it waS in the first place, to think that was a good set up.

[MarmaladeSun]

Schools have certainly changed since I was a pupil (toooo many years ago to admit to!). I'm a special needs TA, and worked a couple of years ago at a secondary school. Some of the things that went on there nearly blew me away! A good percentage of the kids smoked on school premises to which the teachers turned a blind eye; some of those smokers were using cannabis regularly, again on school grounds, and there used to be a lot of snogging going on, ending up with many of the kids sporting love bites like trophies. We were not even allowed to work on a one to one basis with a pupil of the opposite sex alone, in case either he tried it on with us, or said we tried it on with him!!! I left when I got stabbed in the leg with a compass by a 15 year old girl. She was later found to have a heroin loaded syringe (dirty one mind) in her bag. Imagine the implications if she had stabbed me with THAT?

[Skate]

LOL Nikkim!!
No, it's not funny really but her reply just made me chuckle!

[nikkim]

The reply is funny I ahd to stifle a snort whe she said it, if anyone watches Little Britain she was a carbon copy of the teenage school girl on there.

What isn't funny is how she assumed that sex at her age (15) was appropriate and necessary and that it was something to be rushed in a toilet rather than in a loving relationship.

I can remember supervising my first year seven disco (so 11 and 12) and being really shocked at how the girls were dressed and caked in make up and then how the great snog fest and buttock grabbing began. Girls gyrating with each other for a bit of lipstick lesbian chic - at 11!! Made me feel very uneasy.

[nikkim]

But to get a sense of balance before another thread goes bonkers not all teenagers are like that and I for one know that my own daughter will bring home her first suitor from church at the age of 21.

[pixiefish]

It scares the living daylights out of me how socially acceptable underage sex and underage drinking has become amongst a lot of the girls that I teach. in year 9 and 10 so 13-15 going out at the weekend to drink is considered the 'norm'. It depresses me as I worry how to stop this happening with my dd- short of home educating her.

[nikkim]

Of course we should remember that what kids say they do and what they actually do are two different matters.

I can remember making up all sorts of booze fuelled sexual escapades in my diary when I was about sixteen only for my mum to find it. Being very stubborn extremely embaressed and a tad stupid I didn't tell her it was all made up and got grounded for ages.

[hmb]

Part of the reason that kissing isn't allowed on school sites is to try to give some of these kids a place where they can be kids. Not the pseudo sexual beings that they feel society wants them to be.

I have lost count of the girls I have had to chat to about their dress. they look like working girls (some are) at the age of 14. This is simply not condusive to a good, calm working environment.

On a different tack I had to break up two girls last week, one threatened to throw acid over the other. They are both 13. Unless you have been in a secondary school lately you simply cannot imagine how far standards of dicpline and self respect have fallen.

[hmb]

TBH mean bean the probelm isn't so much with the 16-18 year olds in the sixth form. I have had severl act as classroom mentors with SEN classes and they have been wonderful. The problem is mostly with years 9 and 10, so age 13-14. This seems to be the age when the hormones start to run and the kids lack the social skills to deal with it. The girl who propsitioned the builder was in y10 and was 14 years old. She had a 24 year old boyfriend and parent knew and condoned it.

It is not a fault of the school in most cases but the parents.

[edam]

Hmb, did you see any of the Ch4 series recreating a secondary modern? One of the comments I thought was interesting was the kids saying they'd regressed to childhood (this was 16 year olds). There was no make-up, no fashionable clothes, definitely no snogging, instead they really enjoyed their girl guide/boy scout camp.
Made me feel a bit sad that teenagers these days don't get to be kids. A lot of the participants said they didn't want to go back to 2004.

[hmb]

I was thinking about the same prog as I typed edam. They enjoyed being able to be kids!

What is sad is that for most of these girls this is not that they are emotionally and physically ready to have a sexual relationship (and I'd admit that some girls are mature early). They do it because they have been 'sexualised' by society at an age that isn't right for them. These are not confident young woment 'trying out' they sexuality. They are little kids doing what they feel they 'should'.

It is all a follow on from the kids in primary school wearing high heels and make up and cut away tops. We need kids to be kids ffs. Not trainee hookers.

[MeanBean]

How about a campaign to stop companies making clothes that make little girls look like child prostitutes? I can't believe how many parents actually buy the stuff.

[MTS]

I think it is a very sensible message to teenagers that there are times and places where canoodling isn't appropriate - after all do they expect to be able to snog in the workplace?????

[hmb]

Sadly a large minority think that they can do whatever they want, wherever they want to do it.

They will have a very rude awakening when they get sacked from their first job, or smashed in the face in a pub for acting in they way they do at school.

They look at me with incredulety when I tell them that there are basic standards of behaviour and, unlike school employers will not put up with people who arrive late, fail to work, or tell customers to Fuck off if they are annoyed by them.

You honestly cannot believe how feral some of these kids are in their behaviour. They respect no-one, not even themselves. It is very, very sad.

[MeanBean]

HMB, where the bloody hell do you work? It sounds like a nightmare.

My friend works in a frightfully upmarket secondary school (private) and her biggest problem is that about a quarter of her pupils have some kind of eating disorder that they know about. (Very highly pressurised, over-achieving, extra-curricular packed lives with extremely demanding parents who treat her like a servant.) She has no discipline problems whatsoever! But it's a different kind of hell, I suppose.