Punishment in Schools, Being Welsh

                                       Punishment in Schools

…A survey a few years ago of 17,000 eight year olds in 16 countries showed British children coming almost bottom in terms of helping out with household chores.

…My posh boarding school made junior boys do tasks called “sweats”. These included sorting out clean socks, clearing tables and emptying bins…If everyone has to do some chores, then it discourages anti-social behaviour. You are less likely to make a mess if you and your friends are going to be clearing it up later anyway.

Kept In, 

Erskine Nicol (1825-1904)

Photo Credit. Leicester Arts and Museums Service [CC BY-NC-SA]

…Chores also make good punishments. In a commendable move in 2014, Michael Gove, then the education secretary, issued new guidelines explicitly allowing schools to use cleaning and tidying tasks as penalties for bad behaviour. This had all but died out under previous rules, which prohibited school authorities from imposing any punishments that could be seen as “degrading”.

(The Times, 2019)

Haven’t cleaning and tidying tasks as penalties for bad behaviour always played a part in a large number of schools? It was nothing to do with Michael Gove. Do any teachers follow any governmental guidelines?







Sport  

They [the Welsh] are raised on songs and stories – yet that lore leads to a certain place, to the red jersey and molten heat of Cardiff on international days.

…Play at the Principality Stadium and you will know all about that. When Wales are banging on the line the noise is something you rarely experience. It is loud elsewhere but this is like the way you can tell the difference between when your child is crying to raise the roof and when there is urgent feeling behind the cry. The roar in Cardiff is primal, from the pit of the crowd’s belly. They must crash over that line. In those moments you feel fundamentally human, trying to resist a force of nature.

…Being in camp with the Welsh is something I’ve been lucky to experience on two Lions tours. Supporters often say the Welsh are the spirit of that tour; it’s the same with the players. They are different, but serious crack [craic?] – once they have accepted the fact that they have to leave Wales that is.

…For the 2009 tour we were left waiting for the Welsh bus at Pennyhill. You can tell the lads are thinking: “Who the hell shows up late to a Lions tour?”

Thirty minutes late, in rolls the Welsh bus. It turned out they were late because Andy Powell’s mum was crying and hugging Andy so much outside the bus. “I’m so proud of you son…I’m so proud of you.”

Maternal Joy,
Thomas Faed (1825/26-1900) 
Photo Credit: The Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum [CC BY-NC-ND]

She had also brought a load of sandwiches for the boys before their journey. As soon as you hear that you’re almost overcome with love for the Welsh; the butterflies who cannot be broken on the wheel of professionalism.

That said, who turned up on the tour? Andy Powell’s mum! The sandwiches and tears were just a ceremony to mark the leaving of Wales!

(Donncha O’Callaghan, The Times, 16.3.2019)

*A vicious wind swept in from Tiger Bay and along the assembled ranks of players before the kick-off. Alun Wyn Jones, who will have had bigger things on his mind – like battering the second-best team in the world into the turf to secure the grand slam – noticed his appointed mascot, seven-year old Joey Hobbs from Whitchurch RFC, was shivering in his shadow. So, the Wales captain paused and lent down to wrap his Welsh jacket around the boy’s shoulders, a gesture Joey surely will never forget

(Kevin Mitchell, The Guardian, 19.3.2019)