I read with interest the article in TES Magazine about the abolition of corporal punishment (“The day my life changed - when I realised we’d won the fight to ban the cane”, September 10). Nick Peacey rejoices that we no longer cane very badly behaved pupils and asserts that the cessation of caning has had “absolutely no impact in schools”. Not quite the case, I would argue, because no effective deterrent has been put in its place.
This is one reason why more and more schools nowadays administer punishment almost by negotiation, and why some pupils have become almost impossible to teach. Perhaps Mr Peacey prefers the modern way of drugging the worst offenders to keep them under control.
I want to start a STOPP group - the Society of Teachers Opposed to Pupils being force-fed Pills. I contest we’ll look back in 30 years and decry this outrageous practice.
Simon Warr, Teacher, Suffolk.