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From: This British Newspaper

PARENTS TO BLAME FOR SCHOOL YOBS
They have to learn to say no, says head
By Lachlan Mackinnon

A LEADING Scots headteacher has claimed parents who won't say "no" to their children are making life harder for schools.

Education expert Mike Beale said teachers are increasingly having to tell mums and dads to stand up to their kids.

He insisted that discipline at home is essential for learning and attacked the idea that families had to be "democracies".

Speaking at an education conference in Edinburgh yesterday, Beale said: "Heads are too often at the centre of trying to educate parents that it is okay to say no to their children.

"It is essential to draw lines for those children beyond which they are not permitted to go.

"It is not essential that families are democracies.

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"My heart still sinks when mum or dad say to me that they have made a decision, they don't really like it, but Maggie Rose really wants this, that, or the other and they are afraid not to agree.

"After all, we have to be best friends.

"I'm afraid the reasoning still has to be that parents, like heads, have to say no sometimes because they know best"Values have been learned before school begins. Language development in the first two years determines the pace of learning for ever more.

"Yet, school and teachers are held responsible for any shortcomings that children demonstrate as they pass through their education."

Beale is head of the independent Craigclowan School near Perth.

He is also chairman of the Incorporated Association of Preparatory Schools, who represent more than 500 private schools in the UK and abroad.

He added: "Roots come from discipline and appreciating that the pain of hard work is nothing like the pain of disappointment, from lines being drawn and by not being afraid to say no."

At a reception with Tony Blair in Downing Street last month, Craigclowan was recognised for "ensuring that young people receive the best start in life