School where children must smile all the time, follow whistled commands and never glance out of the window

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/parents-slam-school-rules-always-24451911

Sounds horrific. I'd home educate a child rather than send them to a place like this. I can't help thinking one of the responses on Twitter I saw may be right - are they trying to drive out children with additional needs who might pull down the GCSE results? My daughter is an adult now but she would have been destroyed by an environment like this. She's very bright but on the autistic spectrum.

Parents have criticised strict new school rules which include "always smiling", never looking out the window and even asking permission to pick up a pen.

Natalie Teece, the newly-appointed headteacher at John Ferneley College in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, has drafted the guidelines ahead of the school reopening in September.

The new rules were delivered to parents in an e-booklet, along with three videos explaining the research and the reason behind them.

Ms Teece said that when 11 to 16-year-olds students return to class, they will be expected to "always smile" and learn to respond to a series of whistle commands given by staff.

They also must enter the classroom in single file, "never forget to say Sir or Miss", always sit up straight and must thank their teacher as they leave the classroom after a lesson.

Walking in a group of more than two people and looking out of windows in class are also banned.

Turning around "even if you hear a noise" is forbidden and pupils have to maintain eye contact with the teacher whenever they are talking, the rules say.

Kids have to wait to be told they may pick up a pen or ruler and if a teacher says hello to them they should make sure their reply is "upbeat".

.......

One rule about lining up said staff will be using whistles to direct kids, with five sounds meaning they must move to their line up area, and one indicating pupils should be silent.

Another about "tracking" the teacher said: "You don't pick up your pen or your ruler, or anything else, until your teacher gives you the signal.

"You never turn around - even if you hear a noise behind you. You don't look out of the window. You don't lose focus."

A rule on sitting up straight said: "You never slouch. Be sitting up straight you are demonstrating physical respect. [ ...] No exceptions. No excuses."

And another said: "You always smile. You are polite and welcoming. When you greet somebody you smile, when a teacher says hello to us in the corridor you reply with an upbeat 'Hello Miss!' or 'Morning Sir!' and you smile."

The guidelines inform students that they are "extremely fortunate to be in a school that is very popular" and must walk around the school only in single file or pairs.
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I would like to know how staff are expected to react if they see a child not smiling - is it instant punishment or will they try to find out if anything is wrong?

What will they do if a child has an accident and more than 1 friend tries to comfort them?

I presume there are either exceptions for students with additional needs or they don’t have any.

Always smile has a larger impact on girls than boys due to the damaging social conditioning that girls/women should always look pleasant. I’d be challenging that along with the rest.

Must make eye contact
Must answer in scripted fashion
Must smile
Must not be distracted or touch stuff on your desk.
Whistles? Really?

Expecting a student with adhd or ASD or other needs to meet those expectations without adjustments would be direct disability discrimination.

Those saying the Michaela school is the same and do well, I’m assuming the parents knew the policies before deciding to send their children there in the first place

This headteacher has just sprung them on the parents.

It all sounds ridiculous. I presume the school is an academy so no accountability - it's always the academies that seem to have the over the top rules.

We had to stand up when a teacher came into the room and wait to be dismissed but none of the over the top stuff - surely it's actually sensible to turn around if you hear a strange noise behind you? And won't teachers find 30 sets of eyes on them the entire time a bit disconcerting?

As for telling a teenage girl when she can and cannot go to the loo - well don't get me started. Does this HT not have periods?

Whistle commands? They aren't dogs ffs. She sounds batshit.

If my child were at the school I'd be looking for a new one.

Making a sweeping generalisation here. Based on the picture of the new headteacher, I'm presuming they are of an age where they have not been a head teacher for very long.

My DS school headteacher (still primary) is very much no nonsense, everyone must obey the rules. But not about shit like this. More like everyone is in on time and has the right uniform.

There's a school like this near us. I dont like it but parents fight to get their children in. It is very popular with parents of children w asd and ADHD who need/like/want a very strong, predictable regime. As it's a new school it only has KS3 children at the moment, it will be interesting to see how the ethos works once the students become older and more cynical.

Children shouldn't be learning to mask emotions and pretend to be happy when they may not be.
They also shouldn't be forced to make eye contact- some people have real difficulty with this (not just SEN).
Turning around when you hear a noise is a safety reflex. I understand why they are trying to discourage this, but children should be aware of their environment, just like adults.
I wouldn't send my child there.

I suspect if posters here saw what an inner city secondary in a poor area is actually like, this school as an alternative wouldn't seem so bad.

These schools are being made to mimic the environment of the British Army. And I think if I lived in an area where my secondary school choices were

1. this school - incredibly strict, harsh discipline but zero bullying as children have to remain silent in corridors and in lunch hall etc, and kids actually learn and pay attention in lessons Or
2. other local inner city comps - zero learning going on due to disruptions, common for kids to bring knives in. Shit GCSE results.

I think I'd choose the former 🤷🏻‍♀️

No one can pay full attention to someone talking for an hour at a time with only a minutes break in between classes. We had six hour long lessons at that age. They'll burn out. Your brain needs that moment of looking out the window or fiddling with your pen. I would never survive at a school like this despite being academically gifted I'm autistic and don't have the attention span or compliance for this.
Do you get to bring a letter from your mum excusing you from smiling when your gran has died?
We expect so fucking much of children and teenagers then wonder why they're so miserable and so many of them have mental health issues.

I hope any parent who wants their ASD child to go to a school where eye contact is mandatory is absolutely sure their child is comfortable with eye contact. If they aren’t - it’s abusive.

@Soubriquet

Those saying the Michaela school is the same and do well, I’m assuming the parents knew the policies before deciding to send their children there in the first place

This headteacher has just sprung them on the parents.

That's the real issue. It's not really a thing if you're about to start looking for Year 7 applications and you can see the school documentation about the mission to turn out mindless grinning robots; but if you've got a kid in year 9, just really settled into the school and having a good group of friends but may struggle with eye contact or smiling all the time... you're kind of fucked really.

It's somewhere that would bloody destroy my youngest - just found out she's been bullied most of this year but felt unable to tell the staff as she didn't want to make them unhappy.

I work in a school with systems similar to this. Once you get past the sensationalist headlines what you actually get is a calm, orderly atmosphere where children can learn without disruption.
I’d say see it all in practice before you judge.

@BaseDrops the eye contact can be a bit of a red herring. My friends son (with asd) goes to a school like this. He says what the teachers are looking for is acknowledgment that you are paying attention. So he looks in their general direction (rather than out of the window or down at the page) and if they are talking to him he looks at their chin (he finds eye contact uncomfortable ) and that's fine. At any rate, the pros of the school outweigh the cons for him - he lives the silent corridors fi. My children would gate it.

Its bloody batshit, and as for the whistling they're children not dogs. Also how many ASD children would be comfortable with the mandatory eye contact. Sounds bloody awful.

The staff will spend more time policing the rules than teaching!
Seems designed to stamp out any individuality and produce robots. Sounds like a Harris Academy 😆

We need to find some middle ground. The above school sounds hellish, but to some extent so are current schools.

There is no funding to support the children who need support. We literally beg, borrow and steal support staff to provide children with snippets of 1:1 support for children desperately in need. What happens when that support is not there? In some cases the child is placid and therefore goes under the radar. In other cases the child expresses their distress by lashing out, children and staff get hurt, resources get damaged and instead of teaching we are managing behaviour.

We need more money in education. Behaviour doesn’t need to be managed by whistles and forced smiles. It could be drastically improved by supporting the children who need support either with SEN or experience of traumatic life events, improving wellbeing for all so that everyone feels safe and valued enough to learn.

I'm a primary school teacher and I have high expectations regarding my class's behaviour and attitude to learning but I find this a bit over the top and strange. I think I would be freaked out by my whole class all trying to make eye contact with me at once!!

Miss is not the equivalent of sir.

I know that’s not the main outrage here but

Looking out of the window every now & again and focusing your eyes on something more distant is recommended to help prevent eye strain.

Respondng to whistles reminds me of the Sound of Music

Can any one picture the reality of this for a
teacher at the front of a class and 30 children with their mouths set in a wide grin not taking their eyes of them for the whole of the lesson.

It sounds like something from Village of the Damned or some other horror movie

@Soubriquet

Those saying the Michaela school is the same and do well, I’m assuming the parents knew the policies before deciding to send their children there in the first place

This headteacher has just sprung them on the parents.

Sou you make a good point here.

Agree with pp who said it was to rid the school of those that might bring its SATS or GCSE results down

This is crazy. Surely denying your emotions and forcing a smile as a child/ teenager is emotionally harmful?
Whistling?! They aren’t dogs!
It sounds really horrible and designed to squash the individuality out of everyone, creating little worker robots and not growing young people to be well rounded human beings. Especially awful for children with special needs or neurodiversities. Dystopian.