Homework appears several times in the survey.
A single forgotten exercise might produce a reprimand or lesser penalty.
Repeated failure was more likely to be interpreted as deliberate neglect.
Three Missing Sets
One grammar-school pupil recalled a serious homework incident in 1957.
He was thirteen and had failed to hand in three sets of homework.
The matter was referred to the deputy headmaster.
He received four strokes of the cane in the deputy head’s office.
Unlike many respondents, however, he did not claim that the punishment completely solved the problem.
He later failed to complete homework again.
His verdict was that the punishment had been only partly effective.
Ability or Willingness?
Homework offences present a difficulty which appears elsewhere in this survey.
Why had the work not been completed?
Was the pupil lazy?
Had he forgotten?
Did he find the work too difficult?
Was there some difficulty at home?
The questionnaire records the offence as remembered by the pupil but cannot always answer these wider questions.
Repeated Failure
From the school’s viewpoint, repeated failure made the matter more straightforward.
Whatever explanation might have been accepted on the first occasion became less convincing after several repetitions.
Persistent failure could therefore be interpreted as refusal to meet an obligation.
Punishment for Standard of Work
A related case occurred in 1959.
A thirteen-year-old boy at a Church of England school was punished because the standard of his work was considered unsatisfactory.
He was surprised because classroom teachers did not normally use the cane.
He stated that he took greater care with his work for the remainder of the year and considered the punishment effective.
A Difficult Principle
Yet there is an important distinction between punishing unwillingness and punishing inability.
A pupil who can complete work but refuses to do so presents a disciplinary problem.
A pupil who genuinely cannot understand the work presents an educational problem.
The two can appear identical when represented simply by an unfinished exercise book.
The Teacher’s Judgement
The teacher therefore had to decide whether poor work represented laziness, carelessness or genuine difficulty.
The survey cannot establish how accurately such judgements were always made.
It does show that academic performance could become a disciplinary matter when teachers believed the pupil was capable of doing better.
