
>> "There were two kinds of teachers when I was at school. Those you were scared of, and respected, and those you weren't scared of, and pissed about.
Unfortunately, thanks to the fluffy-bunny PC liberal brigade, the former are all but extinct in today's schools."
I agree with this partly, one of my favourite teachers (whom is one of the only ones I am in touch with today) kept a calm jokey atmosphere 95% of the time and always used to hit me on the arm if I was messing about or being stupid and tip all my stuff out of my pencil case on the desk/floor. It was all in jest and it kept me and the others quiet when need be, one of the skills a teacher needs to have is to be able to use the social dynamic of a class to calm them. Because I liked the teacher and was confident in myself it didn't affect me at all.
But then teachers needn't be physical either my other favourite teacher had complete control of every class he took, it was also a calm jokey atmosphere 95% of the time but when he wanted quiet he got it. It may seem harsh at first but a new teacher to a class needs to ask for quiet maybe twice or three times and then when they don't get it SNAP at whoever is the centre of the disturbances and hand out harsh punishment, a detention or whatever the school has available. After a few repeats of this the pupils get the message that there is no negotiation and what the teacher says goes. The pupils will hate the teacher for a few weeks but then are able to settle into the lessons and a light hearted atmosphere forms because the pupils know the boundaries and won't cross them, although sometimes a reminder is needed.
>> "And schools that are "inclusion" schools (who on earth thinks inclusion is always a good idea?) are worse, because there is a financial incentive on the school not to permanently exclude any pupils.
Although you have a point, when I moved from the state sector to the independent sector (at GCSE level) I found, much to my disappointment at the time, that it had a much better atmosphere and more effective punishments. This is probably down to smaller class sizes.
As for excluding pupils, the schools have a massive reputation to uphold and don't blink twice when contemplating suspensions and expulsions. Although when expelling someone the school usually sent a letter to the childs parents saying something like "we advise you to remove the child from our school before we do it for you and it goes on his record and we keep your money"