I went on an Academy Principals trip last week, visiting Academys around the M25. In one of the Academys the Principal, gave us a tour and told us how bad the building was and how many extra walls she had to ask the builders to put up as the building neared completion. Maybe I'm naive, but if we put up walls to stop student movement or reduce noise, we are giving a subliminal message to the students: We don't trust you to walk around this building in an appropriate way and we certainly don't trust you not to disturb others.
If we are to instill good habits of learning in our students we should give them the chance to aspire to behaving appropriately and be there to pick them up when they are struggling to do this. Just another job for the teacher I believe.
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