I am delighted to hear Bridget Phillipson speak of the need for a culture change in schools (Phillipson to ask schools to end exam ‘tunnel vision’ and look to wellbeing, 6 November). As a grandparent, I have been appalled by the anecdotes I’ve been hearing about academy schools. It is clear to me that schools have lost any focus on their pupils’ wellbeing. It appears that they are treating children as numbers to be processed rather than as individuals with personal needs and characters. In large part this may be down to resource shortages, preventing teachers from doing what they should do.
However, there seems also to have been a drive among senior school leaders to adopt fashionable policies such as “zero-tolerance” attitudes to misdeeds and the insistence that every pupil must carry a report card at all times. These cards are marked every time the child is considered to have offended, and if certain points thresholds are exceeded, detention, isolation or other punishment follows.
