21 October 2013

Schools of shame named

| johnboy
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The ABC has been FOI’ing critical incidents at Canberra’s schools this year, that is violent and/or weapon related trouble.

And the schools of shame are:

    — Canberra High School
    — Calwell High School
    — Harrison School
    — Woden School
    — Telopea Park School

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wildturkeycanoe said :

Gerry-Built said :

Please explain why the “shame” is on the schools listed, JB? Sounds more like a handful of kids unable to handle emotions at greater-than 2YO level… and that has certainly been my experience, too.

I totally agree. Just because one or two students had a personal issue and went public with it violently, how does that make school staff or students responsible in any way? If the issue wasn’t dealt with properly and the same student continued on creating a historical path of destruction, then there would be something to shame. Shame on the student and/or parents of the student, not the school. This is another example of the way our society is going wrong. Somebody does a bad thing and the school gets blamed. Where is their own responsibility and accountability? If not dealt with properly at this age, they only go on to worse things later in life.
I know of a school where class lock-downs due to a violent student have happened more than once in a year and it isn’t a high school either. Repeat offender involved but the student remains there, not even having been suspended for a day. “But the poor thing needs support.” Approach was used, ineffectively I might add. I’ve also seen the bad eggs repeatedly getting awards during assemblies, supposedly encouragement awards, even though they lack the skills of basic spelling and arithmetic. It’s just all wrong, rewarding and nurturing the trouble makers rather than showing them there are consequences that they won’t like for doing bad things. Bring back a return to discipline, instead of the passive tip-toe approach and we won’t need to shame a school. At the moment we should shame the entire education system for getting too soft on violence.

I think the lack of literacy and/or numeracy is a key factor in some instances of misbehaviour. As a former teacher I remember seeing kids who would cause no end of disruption just to get out of reading aloud for example. I’m not condoning misbehaviour but I do have empathy for kids for whom every school day is a struggle.

thebrownstreak699:42 am 22 Oct 13

Roksteddy said :

Very irresponsible heading

RiotACT taking another step toward becoming a tabloid.

We’ve always aspired to be a tabloid!

Very irresponsible heading

Should be renamed to “Parents of Shame”.

Indeed the shame is that the private schools are not required to report, and presumably are exempt from FOI requests.

IP

Why “schools” of shame? Why not “parents” of shame? Are we blaming teachers for not properly socialising our children now?

wildturkeycanoe6:22 am 22 Oct 13

Gerry-Built said :

Please explain why the “shame” is on the schools listed, JB? Sounds more like a handful of kids unable to handle emotions at greater-than 2YO level… and that has certainly been my experience, too.

I totally agree. Just because one or two students had a personal issue and went public with it violently, how does that make school staff or students responsible in any way? If the issue wasn’t dealt with properly and the same student continued on creating a historical path of destruction, then there would be something to shame. Shame on the student and/or parents of the student, not the school. This is another example of the way our society is going wrong. Somebody does a bad thing and the school gets blamed. Where is their own responsibility and accountability? If not dealt with properly at this age, they only go on to worse things later in life.
I know of a school where class lock-downs due to a violent student have happened more than once in a year and it isn’t a high school either. Repeat offender involved but the student remains there, not even having been suspended for a day. “But the poor thing needs support.” Approach was used, ineffectively I might add. I’ve also seen the bad eggs repeatedly getting awards during assemblies, supposedly encouragement awards, even though they lack the skills of basic spelling and arithmetic. It’s just all wrong, rewarding and nurturing the trouble makers rather than showing them there are consequences that they won’t like for doing bad things. Bring back a return to discipline, instead of the passive tip-toe approach and we won’t need to shame a school. At the moment we should shame the entire education system for getting too soft on violence.

Please explain why the “shame” is on the schools listed, JB? Sounds more like a handful of kids unable to handle emotions at greater-than 2YO level… and that has certainly been my experience, too.

Hardly shame. My kids go to Harrison and it’s excellent. There was a single incident that was dealt with. It’s not quite the same league as some of the horror bullying stories on here recently. No school is perfect, obviously, but shaming a school of ~1300 for a single act is a bit harsh.

If you look through the FOI, there’s a few more than just those: Lyneham, Belconnen, Kaleen, UC (formerly Lake Ginninderra?), Erindale.

You could almost call every school a school of shame because of an incident going back to 2009. These days, the question is more one of how the school responds than whether anything happened.

Kerryhemsley2:19 pm 21 Oct 13

There was a regular poster on Riot Act, Shadow Boxer? who would have loved this one. Especially with private schools not being required to spill details of incidents.

This may well flush him out.

A little surprised Kingsford Smith doesn’t appear. Hopefully this means they’re making progress out there.

Calwell High used to be a good school but has gone downhill in recent years.

A friend moved her son to a different school when he was assaulted and injured in class. When she asked the teacher why she didn’t stop the incident, the teacher apparently replied she couldn’t do anything because the students in her class were rioting. This was not the incident mentioned in the OP.

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