KEEPING OF RECORDS

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 59, 10 March 1936, Page 14

KEEPING OF RECORDS

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT

INNOVATION DISCUSSED

Should corporal punishment be recorded in .the school log book? This question provoked a keen' discussion at the meeting of the Wellington School Committees' and Educational Federation last night.

The chairman, Mr. E. Turksma, said that the Education Board had received a number of complaints regarding the excessive use of corporal punishment in schools and its infliction ih respect of work marked by other pupils. In order that school committees should be able to satisfy the inquiries of parents and be at the same time cognisant of the position themselves, the Education Board had issued a circular to headmasters directing that a record of all corporal punishment should be kept in the log book. Subsequently, a deputation of teachers waited on the board and raised the objection that the book would thus preserve a permanent record for posterity of every little misdemeanour of a child while at school.

Mr. L. J. McDonald said that the board had now decided upon the keeping of two record books, each covering a six-monthly period. As soon as one was completed the previous one would be destroyed. If any complaints were made school committees could now refSr to records extending over'at least the previous six months.

Several members of the federation expressed the view that corporal punishment should be inflicted solely in cases of wilful misconduct arid should not under any circumstances extend to cases of inability to learn.