‘Caring’ headmaster who carried on caning
How times change. In 1996 Nicholas Debenham the headmaster of St James independent school for boys in Twickenham, London, was all over the news because his was one of the last schools to continue to use the cane after it was banned in state schools. In 2005 he and the school were to be the subject of an official report that concluded ‘mistreatment of pupils took place’ at the school.
Caring headteacher who
believes beating can be good for his boys
St James independent school
for boys in Twickenham, south-west London, is one of the last bastions of
corporal punishment.
While most public schools
have bowed to political pressure in the last decade and followed state schools
in abolishing the cane, St James has struck a traditionalist stance.
Yet in explaining the
policy, Nicholas Debenham, the headmaster, discusses care for the pupils as much
as discipline and describes his school of 180 boys as very happy. “You've got
to have love on one hand and discipline on the other - an awful lot of love and
a little bit of discipline,” he said.
“If you have that and a
proper relationship of trust and respect between pupils and teachers, which is
what there should be, then that's the real foundation for the child's
education.”
The cane – three strokes
administered to the backside – is an ultimate sanction when pupils behave
really badly.
“There are certain things I
wouldn't put up with,” Mr Debenham said. He cites deliberate cruelty to another
child, repeated lying to gain advantage, or serious theft.
But there is nothing
vicious or violent about caning. “People should be able to tell the difference
between a vicious assault and properly measured discipline.”
He believes punishment is
preferable to expulsion. “If you expel the boy, you just pass the problem on to
someone else.”
Outside St James, the
pupils were adamant that corporal punishment worked.
Richard Smith, 16, said
that he had received one stroke of the cane when he was aged 12 for skipping a
number of detentions.
“I accepted it because I
realised what I’d done,” he said. “Lines wouldn't have been a deterrent and
detention obviously wasn't, but getting the cane made me think again.”
Another pupil, Simon
Bonell, 17, admitted he was worried about the cane when he first arrived at the
school.
“I think a lot of the
younger boys are worried about the cane, but that’s why it's such a good
deterrent,” he said.
“I went through a stage
where I missed class a lot. One day I didn't go to assembly and the culmination
of offences meant I got two strokes of the cane. I had bruises for a couple of
days but I learnt my lesson.”
Minal Patel, 16, who
arrived in the fifth form at St James five weeks ago from another public
school, Mill Hill in north London, said he immediately noticed the high level
of discipline at the school.
“It's a lot stricter here
than at Mill Hill,” he said. “That, no doubt, is due to the cane to some
extent. But a lot of my friends thought it was kind of strange to come to a
school that dished out corporal punishment.”
As published in
The
Independent, 30 October 1996.
Picture credit: Darrien.
Read more about St James on the Corpun site here.
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