YP Letters: Discipline at home is key to learning

From: Keith Turnbull, Ryton Way, Doncaster.
Teachers play an important role when it comes to discipline among pupils. (PA).Teachers play an important role when it comes to discipline among pupils. (PA).
Teachers play an important role when it comes to discipline among pupils. (PA).

HUGH Rogers (The Yorkshire Post, July 10) puts the blame directly onto teachers for the 40 per cent failure rate in primary school children meeting Government standards in basic subjects.

If this 40 per cent was spread evenly across all schools, the insinuation would be that we don’t have one good teacher in our primary schools.

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Obviously this is not the case and Norma McNichol (The Yorkshire Post, July 14) has detailed some of the difficulty facing teachers in today’s world.

I would emphasise the lack of backup from home as being a major factor, and I would add that the serious lack of discipline of many children going into primary school gives teachers a serious problem.

With lessons being continually disrupted, all other pupils get less attention due to the actions of a few.

I would hate children to have to face the barbaric punishment that was dished out in the 40s and 50s when I was at school, but children have to have some installed discipline, preferably at home, if they are not to go out and lower the level of society in general.

Big state on a small island

From: John Fisher, Menwith Hill.

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AS a recent letter pointed out, we have one of the biggest governments in the world and a huge Civil Service.

As a small country, we also have a large Army, Navy and Air Force which requires a huge financial commitment.

Our minority governments over time have flip-flopped from disaster to disaster and yet we continue to blame the EU for all our ills.

We have been unable to control the number of people entering the UK since the 1950s and exiting the EU will not help.

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The truth is that our political parties are now faced with resolving complex problems which they have created over time.

It would appear that we can no longer continue to fund a large government, a large Civil Service and a large military presence.

From: Keith Chapman, Custance Walk, York.

LOOKING at the papers, and how hospitals up and down the country are facing staff shortages, could our Army medical teams set up field hospitals for a limited period? There are plenty of ideas that management should be considering.

Bobbies on the beat

From: Peter Hyde (former Police officer), Driffield

So the Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police has at last discovered that police officers walking the beat is the way to connect with the public. I could have told him that years ago.

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Continuous interference and cost cutting by government has caused the present situation.

No longer do we have country bobbies, while smaller towns like the one I live in have been almost totally deprived of police cover and we haven’t seen a patrolling officer for some time.

How are the police supposed to detect crime if they don’t keep contact with the public who often see and hear things that they would pass on?

The public used to know the local police officers but alas no longer. Get back to basics and watch a massive improvement in all aspects of the job.

From: Canon Michael Storey, Healey Wood Road, Brighouse

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I was the vicar of Crosland Moor (Huddersfield) for nineteen years. Two of my first visitors were “bobbies” from the local police station in Lockwood, which provided cover of an area on the west side of Huddersfield.

They visited me for obvious reasons, so that we could help each other in the care of the community in which we worked.

There were many times when our joint knowledge was helpful in that care of the community. The local population knew the police by name, and vice versa – result many “would-be” crimes prevented before they happened.

The powers that be closed Lockwood Police Station in about 2000 – ‘care’ was thus provided by patrol cars – with the result that ‘care’ became more or less non-existent.

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These days, in the light of so many crimes not being prevented through this lack of “bobbies on the beat”, full marks to South Yorkshire’s “fresh” approach.

How ridiculous that it has taken some 15 years to re-discover that local knowledge is the best crime prevention!

I am still a close friend of those two now retired “bobbies”.

Train drain on the North

From: Arthur Quarmby, Mill Moor Road, Meltham.

The establishment long ago decided that HS2 will go ahead, on account of the benefits which it will draw into London, and away from the North. Just as happened for the high-speed rail links from Marseilles into Paris and from Osaka into Tokyo.

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The city mayor system works for the capital (where it can be kept under control) and it will therefore be run out across the country.

A united Yorkshire would be far too dangerous – very similar to the pain-in-the-necks Scots – and will therefore be forbidden.