School leavers at Sackville
Our local rag had a scare story about local police being drafted in to deal with year 11 pupils leaving today on exam leave.

I have a vivid recollection of the "good old days" when we left Selhust Grammar School in Croydon in 1968 and somebody set the dustbins on fire. This was pretty dangerous behaviour and could have set the school alight were it not for the fact that staff knew that it happened every year and it was therefore something they were waiting for.

My school was everything the right want. It was a grammar school and it had corporal punishment - yet even then there was disaffection so it is not a new phenomenon.

It is true that pupils are alienated and it would be nice to see some serious research into why. It is quite possible, for example, that constant testing for no purpose alienates pupils. This is different from saying "it is OK to get drunk and cause a nuisance" although that is how the right would read it. Their cosy nostrums will not solve the problem however, trying to find out the reason for the alienation might.