School kids must walk hands behind backs to ‘inspire’ ambition, says head

Primary school children playing outside on space hoppers

Primary school children playing outside on space hoppers   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

‘John’, Teacher

Students at one London primary school are being forced to march with their hands behind their backs.

First as tragedy, then as farce. A neat way of describing the repeated history making its way back into Britain’s schools.

St George the Martyr Primary School, Holborn, describes it as the ‘university walk’. Children must move with hands clasped behind backs when in corridors between lessons.

University

Head teacher Angela Abrahams says: “Our recently introduced university walk inspires children to be the best they can be and to ‘go shine in the world'” – the school’s motto. It’s hard to imagine how being compelled to walk like a prisoner raises the sights of four to eleven-year-olds.

Is there research to support the impact this has on the development of children’s brains, or their ability to learn? Do well-balanced, successful people all walk with their hands behind their backs?

Michael Reiss, a professor of education, commented: “I’m not at all happy by this being described as ‘a university walk’. We want at university autonomous, intelligent, motivated, happy and ambitious people able to determine for themselves the right way to behave.”

If we are to motivate students then gimmicky, quick-fix, authoritarian solutions are not the way forward.

Instead, students are motivated by a varied and interesting curriculum, having a voice and a bit of freedom to express themselves. And most importantly, an environment which recognises their identities and needs – not an imposed view of what the ‘model student’ looks like.

The elitism and rote-learning of the past are invading our schools. The Socialist Party wants to stop them, and brutal education cuts and sell-offs, in their tracks.

Then can we ensure schools meet the needs of students, staff and the wider community. Children will be able to walk around their schools with pride – with or without their hands behind their backs.