Ethos and Discipline
The school states that it provides a holistic education based on Christian values. Its students are known as Fairsians. School uniform is closely enforced. Girls are not allowed to wear coloured bras.
The school says that its approach towards discipline is for every pupil to take ownership in ensuring good behaviour. Pupils' behaviour is monitored using a class management file. Parents are kept informed of any offences committed and the action taken. Minor offences may be dealt with by afternoon detention, during which the student undertakes manual work, e.g. cleaning up the school compound.
Male students receive corporal punishment (caning) in cases of misconduct. The strokes are delivered to the seat of the boy's trousers. Those who commit a fourth minor offence in succession are awarded three demerit points and one stroke of the cane; girls must undergo five days of "isolation after school" instead of the caning. Further demerit points accumulate for further offences, with a caning of two strokes, or ten days of isolation for girls, at the 8th offence. At the 9th offence, both sexes get one week of in-school suspension, and the pupil must sign a behaviour contract. A caning is also automatic whenever a boy has collected 10 demerit points.
A student's first caning per term takes place privately in the principal's office, his second in front of his class, and his third in front of the whole student body at morning assembly. For more serious offences there is a detailed list of consequences. A boy will receive five demerit points plus one stroke of the cane for cheating in tests, truancy or fighting. For vandalism, bullying, gambling, smoking or stealing, the penalty is 10 demerit points plus three strokes of the cane.
Read more about this topic: Fairfield Methodist School (Secondary)
Famous quotes containing the words ethos and, ethos and/or discipline:
“Reading more than life teaches us to recognize ethos and pathos.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Reading more than life teaches us to recognize ethos and pathos.”
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“The first rule of education for me was discipline. Discipline is the keynote to learning. Discipline has been the great factor in my life. I discipline myself to do everything—getting up in the morning, walking, dancing, exercise. If you won’t have discipline, you won’t have a nation. We can’t have permissiveness. When someone comes in and says, “Oh, your room is so quiet,” I know I’ve been successful.”
—Rose Hoffman, U.S. public school third-grade teacher. As quoted in Working, book 8, by Studs Terkel (1973)