Within hours, she was called to the telephone during a school visit in Weybridge, Surrey, to be told by Mr Major that he would not allow the issue of corporal punishment to be reopened. Mr Major said the Government had a "settled policy" against it. Officials said he made clear that the Government was not persuaded that caning was practical and would not include it among new school disciplinary measures in the Education Bill to be published today. The court did not rule entirely in the women's favour. It decided that the schools' use of corporal punishment had not violated Article 3 because the judges found insufficient evidence that such punishment was degrading. However, it further ruled that corporal punishment amounted to a breach of Article 2 of Protocol No 1 which guarantees a parent's right to ensure that their children's education and teaching is in conformity with their own philosophical convictions. Police were alerted after a passing comment by a 10-year-old victim to her mother and another girl from the same school came forward after publicity.

But on Friday night, Home Secretary Michael Howard said some situations called for extreme measures. 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. The Rt Hon Baroness Gillian Shephard of Northwold DL - Modern Languages, 1958". St Hilda's College University of Oxford. 29 January 2016 . Retrieved 22 July 2022. Immediately after the Question Time exchanges, Mrs Shephard spoke in the resumed Commons debate on the Queen's Speech. But the controversy over caning overshadowed the Government's proposals for improving choice, raising standards and improving discipline. She married Thomas Shephard on 27 December 1975. She has two stepsons, including econometrician Neil Shephard FBA, Professor of Economics and Statistics at Harvard University. [ citation needed] Ministerial career [ edit ] Official portrait, 1995

Mrs Shephard was greeted with cries of "Miss Whiplash" from Labour MPs. David Blunkett, her Labour shadow, said the Government's handling of corporal punishment episode had been a "complete fiasco" and she had been "slapped down in a humiliating fashion" by the Prime Minister. However, there is little prospect of the MPs winning such a vote in the New Year. They face certain defeat from Labour MPs - almost certainly on a three-line whip - and the 116-strong "payroll" vote of ministers and parliamentary private secretaries. Though there is a consistent core, the range of offences at Reginald Road is much wider than the range of punishments (one to four strokes of the cane), with the consequence that there was little or no consistency in punishment. In the Twenties a boy could be caned for "not trying", "mischief", "playing", "unpunctuality", "bad spelling", "bad writing", "untidy exercise and work books", "disfiguring books", "copying", "helping others", "impudence", "rudeness" and "refusing to use his eyes". One boy got a stroke for "putting down anything in his book", and "covering himself with ink". Boys were caned for "passing a note and finding it amusing", "chewing gum" (1931), and "playing with matches and toys". Mrs Shephard confirmed that corporal punishment would not be part of the Education Bill. She added: "My personal view is that corporal punishment can be a useful deterrent to bad behaviour in schools. My Right Honourable friend the Prime Minister takes a different personal view."

John Burn, principal of a comprehensive in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, advocated the reintroduction of corporal punishment in state schools in a lecture and pamphlet published last month. She rented a cottage in Swaffham, began to discuss local issues with party members, attended a coffee morning at Swaffham parish church, met local farmers and even went to a Rotary club art exhibition preview. At least her parliamentary colleagues can content themselves with the thought that last week "teacher's pet" got her comeuppance when she received the political equivalent of six of the best from the Prime Minister. In 2013 following the death of Margaret Thatcher, Shephard published a memoir, The Real Iron Lady, of her time working with the former prime minister. [8] Life peerage [ edit ]As we have argued before, corporal punishment, properly applied, has nothing to do with cruelty, and would help deter school bullies, minimise classroom disruption and restore some of the lost authority of the teaching profession. It would, too, reform some of those to whom it was administered. There are head teachers who do not agree with this view, and who would not restore caning even if it were allowed. But others would, and it is intolerable that those whose job it is to run schools, often in extremely difficult circumstances, should be denied an effective tool with which to do so. I don't object to parents hitting their kids," he said. "I don't like it when I've done it, but I have done it to my own kids from time to time and there are even occasions when I have done it when I shouldn't have done it." Her apparent interest in Higher Education intrigued me, with an impressive CV including ex-Chair of the Council of the Institute of Education, Honorary Fellow at St Hilda’s College Oxford and visiting Professor of Public Policy at King’s College London. When I asked her about her love for universities, her pure enthusiasm and obvious excitement resonated with me. ‘There is nothing that can happen without it first being thought of by an academic,’ she said. It’s refreshing to find a politician who supports causes for a personal passion, with no hidden agenda. Her time as Deputy Chair of the Social Mobility Committee made her consider that although universities are working towards social change by increasing diversity and affecting the local economy, their potential is still unplumbed. Interestingly she believes that scholarships are of the most importance and will have a greater effect on this change than any political influences. ‘ Scholarships totally transcend political concerns and it is a constant reminder that across human endeavour there is something higher than venal interest.’ Whatever one thinks about caning in schools, its reintroduction cannot be plausibly portrayed as the obsession of a cranky minority. It would almost certainly have some disciplinary effect, so why dismiss it out of hand? A Conservative Government genuinely interested in educational standards should at least be open-minded about a traditional aid to authority which we suspect would command wide public support. That might sound familiar to some teachers in inner-city sink schools today, but it is nothing compared to the actions of the 13-year-old Gwilym Jones, now a Welsh Office minister, who set fire to his headmaster's study at Whitchurch High School, Cardiff.