Corpun file 23005

Times Educational Supplement, London, 1 March 1968

Cardiff may drop no-cane rule

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The City of Cardiff may decide to revoke its ban on caning in primary schools. After representations from both assistant teachers and headmasters, some of whom said they might call in the police to help to keep discipline, a motion has been tabled asking the City Council to suspend the no-cane ruling.

It has been reported that several council members, including the chairman of the education committee, Mr. Lincoln Hallinan, intend to support the motion, which will come before the council next week. If it is passed, the caning rule will go back in the book, pending talks with Cardiff teachers.

This is more or less exactly what the teachers want. "The best authorities are the ones with no rules on the subject", said the secretary of the Cardiff branch of the National Union of Teachers, Mr. Jack Sloman. The question of punishment, he went on, should be left -- to the teachers themselves.

Corpun file 23006

Times Educational Supplement, London, 8 March 1968

Cane returns to Cardiff

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Cardiff primary teachers may go back to using the cane, it was decided on Monday. At a meeting of the city council, the month-old ban was suspended by a good majority.

This does not mean, however, that the cane is back to stay. The issue has now been handed back to Cardiff Education Committee for further consultation with teachers.

"We have to make it quite clear the principle has been established" said Mr. Norman Lloyd-Edwards, deputy chairman of the education committee, who suggested the suspension. "Caning must go and the sooner the better. The discussions with teachers are to decide how this can be done."

The council's move brought a guarded welcome from Mr. Jack Sloman, secretary of the Cardiff Association of the National Union of Teachers.

"Basically," he said on Tuesday, "this has not been a dispute over corporal punishment, but over the lack of consultation and understanding between teachers and authority."

But during the past few weeks the city council had been brought face-to-face with difficulties that had worried teachers for many years.