THE RETURN OF THE UNIFORM IN FRANCE

Four decades after school uniforms were abolished in France, head teachers are being urged to bring them back in an attempt to improve classroom discipline. Gilles de Robien, the Education Minister, called yesterday for trials in a few schools with a view to reintroducing uniforms across the country.The move comes as debate rages in France over the need to restore order on unruly youths, and as ministers in Switzerland and Germany are also expressing support for a return to a formal dress code. M de Robien was supported by Francois Bayrou, head of the centrist Union for Democracy in France party and a likely candidate in next year’s presidential election. He urged his compatriots to “reflect on the British approach”.

British-style uniforms were abandoned in French schools after the Second World War when pupils were told to wear overalls instead. But those, too, disappeared after the May 1968 riots ushered in a philosophy of individual freedom. School dress codes now tend to be lax, although the Government introduced legislation banning pupils from wearing religious symbols, notably Muslim headscarves, in 2004.

Calls for a return to uniforms have caught the mood of a nation increasingly worried about its youth. Both the leading contenders for the presidency — the Socialist Segolene Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy, the centre-right Interior Minister — have pushed order and discipline to the centre of their policies. In an opinion poll published yesterday 59 per cent of respondents said that they would prefer more order and authority in France, while 37 per cent said they would prefer greater personal freedom.

The mood is also changing among parents, with 48 per cent saying that they are in favour of restoring uniforms and 44 per cent against. Mothers are more likely than fathers to favour school uniforms.

Although supporters of school uniforms cite discipline as a reason, parents also have an eye on the household budget, with a typical family now estimated to spend between 600 euros and 700 a year on clothes for teenage children. Yesterday M de Robien said uniforms “may be an interesting way of avoiding the rush for expensive clothes, although I would not want to take a dogmatic approach to this”. Dominique Marcilhacy, a spokeswoman for the Union of European Families, said: “Children who don’t have the right clothes are rejected and ostracised in a very cruel way. That is a good reason to consider uniforms.”

Some senior French politicians are also calling for l’uniforme a l’ecole to stamp out what they describe as indecent clothes — and particularly the Lolita look. Eric Raoult, the Mayor of Raincy, near Paris, for instance, denounced girls “who wear low-slung jeans so everyone can see the ring in their navel. They wouldn’t be allowed into a nightclub like that.”

Source






Australian Catholic school parents want grades

The overwhelming majority of Catholic school parents support the introduction of the new A-to-E report cards, particularly the move to rank students against their peers. The support opens up a potential split with parents groups in government schools after their national body, the Australian Council of State School Organisations, foreshadowed at the weekend a campaign to inform parents of their right to refuse the new plain-English reports.

ACSSO president Jenny Branch wants state parents and citizens branches to ensure parents are aware they can choose to exclude their child from the new system, designed in response to complaints existing assessment models are vague and confusing. Challenging the push towards simpler A-to-E gradings on report cards, she told The Weekend Australian on Saturday the "traditional end-of-the-year report card is a celebration of achievement of a child throughout the year".

But a survey by the Federation of Parents and Friends Associations and the Catholic Education Office in Sydney shows almost three in four Catholic school parents support the introduction of the plain-English reports and just 8per cent are opposed. Reporting the results in the parents newsletter, About Catholic Schools, federation executive officer Franceyn O'Connor said parents were "largely enthusiastic" about the five-level grading system. "Many parents have indicated in several discussions and meetings held throughout the year that they welcome the opportunity to compare their child's progress against statewide standards using a common grading scale," Ms O'Connor said. "They appreciate how difficult it may be for teachers to convey bad news but they still want a fair and honest assessment of their child's abilities to determine their rate of progress."

The federal Government introduced a requirement for all schools in the government, Catholic and independent sectors to provide plain-English report cards as a condition of funding. All the states and territories are introducing the reports, which must grade students in five levels, such as A to E, and also provide information on the students rankings according to their peers.

Ms O'Connor said the decision by governments to only grade and rank students from Year 1 was crucial for parents' support, with the survey showing more than one in five were concerned that grading children when they started school could harm their self-esteem. ACSSO, representing parents in government schools, maintains opposition to the grading and ranking of students, raising questions of how representative their views are.

The federal Education Department has received many letters of support for the reforms to school reports and federal Education Minister Julie Bishop said the parents she had spoken to welcomed the changes. "The vast majority of parents I talk to want to know in plain English how their children are performing, and how they're performing in relation to other students," she said.

One parent quoted in the Catholic newsletter, Veronica Molloy, who has two children in high school and one at primary, welcomed the chance to gauge how her children were performing against statewide standards. Ms Molloy's only concern was about preconceived ideas that attached a stigma to any grade lower than an A. "There are a lot of negative perceptions in society about a C grade, for example," she said. "Children themselves might perceive any grade other than an A as a failure ... it's up to the Government to address these misconceptions."

Source

***************************

For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

***************************