Meeting of the Parliament 24 May 2023
I thank the Conservatives for the opportunity to discuss an issue that is of vital importance to the education of our children and young people. As the motion notes,
“no pupil, teacher or member of school staff should suffer physical or verbal abuse, and ... every child ... has the right to an uninterrupted school day”.
I whole-heartedly agree, and I give Stephen Kerr and this Parliament an undertaking that I will work across parties on this issue, because I know how important it is that we get this right for our children.
I want to give some context to the debate this afternoon. It was only in 1987 that the last area in Scotland banned the belt in school. In fact, the relevant legislative loophole was closed only with the passing of the Standards in Scotland’s Schools etc Act 2000. I remember being appalled as my principal teacher at the Royal High school in Edinburgh explained to me how, as a young teacher, she was taught how to belt a child: lined up, the new teachers would practice by hitting a desk. The Scottish Office approved a two or three-leather Lochgelly tawse, which came in different weights, and guidelines applied to its application. One such tawse hung in the staff room of the last school that I taught in. It was framed, and the sign below it read, “In case of emergency, break glass.”
I was reflecting on that memory on Sunday morning when I read this headline in Scotland on Sunday: “Gilruth told to get tough on classroom violence”. Earlier in the week, a former headteacher wrote in The Scotsman about
“some wee thug who terrorises kids at break”.
I want to start my contribution today by urging members to be careful in their application of language this afternoon. Maybe, when that headline was written, Scotland on Sunday did not mean its readers to think of the tawse, but that is where my mind went, and the people we are discussing today are children, not thugs. Let us all remember that.