Editorial: We must restore order at school

Lessons on good behaviour are yet another responsibility for our busy teachers, but a vital one, writes the editor.

Australia’s teachers will soon be giving new lessons to their students that have the potential to revolutionise education – teaching them how to behave.

After a Senate inquiry heard horror tales of some students hurling furniture at teachers, keying their cars, punching them, stealing wallets and generally stopping their peers from learning, a new model of school discipline will be rolled out nationally this year.

Taking classes back to the future, students will be explicitly taught how to enter the classroom quietly, how to sit, how to listen properly and how to ask questions, with strategies varying from school to school.

It’s yet another responsibility for our busy teachers, but a vital one.

Make no mistake, Australia’s 310,000 full-time teachers are heroes, performing a crucial but increasingly stressful and sometimes even dangerous role.

The Covid-19 lockdowns gave many Australian parents a small taste of the difficulties teachers experience every day. How happy we were when we could finally send the kids back to school.

While most parents like to think their child is well behaved, it’s a fact that many aren’t.

And even a small minority of disrespectful students can ruin it for the rest of the class.

The new model is based on a behaviour curriculum in the UK that incorporates strategies including a yellow and red card system of warnings for disruptive children and “super walking”, which sees adults leading lines of children single-file around the school.

Schools are also requiring students to pack up, stand behind their chairs and wait to be dismissed table by table at the end of classes.

It will be up to individual teachers in Australia to decide which discipline elements they teach.

The UK model has mandatory and legally enforceable guidelines

It comes as the OECD recently found Australian classrooms have a disciplinary climate that is one of the least favourable in the world – coming 33rd out of 37 countries.

The Courier-Mail’s Best in Class campaign, which we launched last year, has shone a light on the problems in our education system while championing the teachers, who are frankly the only reason the system is operating at all.

We will continue to call out the failings while offering the best solutions based on international experience, while praising proactive measures that recognise present difficulties, such as this renewed focus on discipline.

So many of Australia’s woes, including the domestic violence crisis that we also report on today, can only really be tackled generationally – and that means changing attitudes and behaviours in our schools.

We have recognised the failings in our schools. Surely as a nation we are prepared to do something about it.

MEN MUST LEAD SOCIAL CHANGE ON D.V.

Premier Steven Miles and Opposition Leader David Crisafulli have agreed on something vitally important – it is time for men to stand up and take action against domestic violence.

Both men addressed the crowd at a rally in Brisbane on Sunday – one of dozens held across the nation – and both delivered a strong message.

Mr Miles bluntly declared: “I think men need to be advocates, too.

“We need to support the women of our state, we need to send a signal that we don’t accept violence, and we need to tell other men that kind of behaviour, as well as coercive control, it’s just not acceptable.”

Mr Crisafulli said: “We owe it to women to do better, and to do much, much better … we have to drive change and change occurs when people speak out.”

To have two male leaders delivering such strong messages on an issue that has plagued our society for too long is important. It cannot be underestimated.

And now it is time for ordinary Queenslanders – particularly men – to start calling out their mates when they’re going down the wrong path.

It is, as Mr Miles said, about telling someone that bad behaviour – such as coercive control – is just not acceptable.

Don’t turn a blind eye: call it out. Have those tough conversations. Help build awareness and foster a better society for all.

A woman has been killed every four days in Australia so far this year.

Not all men are perpetrators and no one is suggesting that is the case. But the vast majority of victims are women.

More government inquiries and funding will definitely come.

But the conversation also needs to be had within the community to make real change.

Responsibility for election comment is taken by Chris Jones, corner of Mayne Rd & Campbell St, Bowen Hills, Qld 4006. Printed and published by NEWSQUEENSLAND (ACN 009 661 778). Contact details here