I HAD to put finger to keyboard in response to LJ Serkapin’s letter in Thursday’s (Feb 10) Echo headlined Teacher over-reacted over pupils’ drugs.

As someone somewhat younger than his/her 60 years, I would like to point out that I am troubled by a bit of pot. From little acorns, huge oak trees grow.

I am also a parent of a son at Bishop of Winchester School. Whilst I have little doubt that, as a Christian, Mr McKewan will have forgiven the pupils concerned on a personal level, he does have responsibility for all the pupils at the school.

Under his guidance, and with the support of a very dedicated group of staff, the school has been pulled up by the bootstraps and is now achieving fantastic results.

Possibly more importantly, it is now a place where the majority of pupils want to be and know how to behave when they are there. This has been achieved by setting high standards and having clear boundaries. Zero tolerance, whether it be regarding drugs, attendance or school uniform etc has to be enforced.

If more parents adopted such an approach to bringing up their offspring, we wouldn’t keep having headlines reporting crime and anti-social behaviour.

I agree that the children involved are indeed victims, but they are their parents’ responsibility too, not just the school’s.

Having been a school governor, I have seen some children who will always struggle in life as they simply do not have a nurturing homelife.

The school will not have taken the decision to exclude the pupils lightly.

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