ERO slates school for making pupils write out lines

An Auckland school has been rapped on the knuckles for dishing out lines to its students.

The Education Review Office has criticised Massey's Westbridge Residential School for "use of writing as a disincentive".

In its latest report on the school, the ERO says students put in "time out" had to copy out a sheet of writing to help them reflect on their experience. "Students could thus perceive writing as a form of punishment," it says.

And at least one mother agrees.

Yolande Jeffares of Mangere said her 16-year-old daughter had been given lines to do at school, but she regarded the punishment as a joke and made up her own words.

Mrs Jeffares said for some children, being forced to write lines was "tantamount to abuse".

"From a psychological viewpoint, the message it's sending is that writing is a chore.

"We've got huge percentages of our kids in schools failing because we aren't adapting."

Judine Ladbrook, principal education lecturer at Auckland University's Epsom campus, said forcing students to write lines was an "extraordinary waste of time" and was the sortof punishment that featured in1950s novels. Since the 1980s she had been training teachers to use punishments that "fit the crime".

"If it is going on, it would be an individual teacher's choice," she added.

Another mother said lines were "ridiculous ... a complete waste of time and hardly in keeping with the way that literacy education is heading".

- HERALD ON SUNDAY