Drill Competitions - a way to teach discipline in the 21st Century?

A common perception of young people today is that they lack discipline. I must say that I do not subscribe to that view. They are perhaps less formal and have shorter attention spans than their forebears, but that is because they are a product of the world that we have created rather than because they are fundamentally ill-disciplined. In fact, I would go so far as to argue that young people actually like discipline and respond well to it. Any doubters witnessing the Yates Drill competition at Berkhamsted School on Tuesday evening would have their faith in young people's regard for discipline restored.

Squads of boys and girls from the Navy, Army and Air Force sections, competing for the coveted trophy, march to a set pattern that includes turns, saluting, changing step and so on. Squads practise for weeks in advance - this is not something that the cadets have to do, it is something they want to do - they muster before school, at breaks and lunch times to train. There is something wonderfully anachronistic about the Yates Drill competition, which has been part of School Calendar for over a century. With the obvious exception of the participation of the girls, who have won the competition for the past eight or so years, it really does have a pre-Great War feel to it.

The volunteer cadets are expected to look the part, which entails cleaning their brass, pressing their uniforms and shining their shoes. Parents comment in bemusement that their sons and daughters (who are no different from their peers around the country in pushing the boundaries on school uniform, jewelry and hair length) insist on haircuts and that supplies of shoe polish and Brasso are in place. It is so tempting to put the Regimental Sergeant Major in charge of school uniform!

I have worked in five independent schools and in each of them the School Combined Cadet Force (CCF) has served an invaluable role in developing important qualities and skills in young people, not only discipline, but also leadership, problem-solving, initiative and, most importantly, confidence.

I am grateful to Mr Peter Riddick for the use of these pictures

On discipline - A perspective from 1910

The following advice to teachers was published to the Masters of Berkhamsted School in 1910 when Dr Fry was Headmaster.

• Find out how to get your influence; without it you cannot teach.
• Do not shout.
• Do not be glued to your chair.
• Air your room: it takes trouble to do aright.
• Make your boys respect their books.
• If your arrival in a room does not secure serene respectful silence, you have no grip on your form.
• Maintain your discipline with as few words as possible.
• Force is not discipline, nor is temper.
• Boys prefer order and the man who can keep it.
• Cultivate the power of glances and silences: be a bit of an actor.
• The best power is undemonstrative.
• Do not seem to expect anything but order.
• If one word secures attention, you are probable a disciplinarian.
• Watch against allowing temptations to do wrong.
• Do not scold. Enlist the class on your side.
• Always acknowledge an unintentional injustice.
• The less “black book,” the better discipline.
  
• Be ambitious never to retort, except for serious moral offences.
• Never goad into resistance.
  
• Do not have too long a memory. Make a little allowance.
• Do not mistake success for virtue.
  
• The stupid often plod and fail. Remember how failure deters.
• Be punctual.
  
• Do not forget dignity altogether. Show sympathy.
• Distinguish character in your own mind.
• Don’t be funny, if you cannot easily control results.
• Compel a tidy room.
• Dismiss quite quietly.
• Think over your failures to influence, and their cause.
• The root of discipline is boys’ high respect for you.
• No imposition that is not seriously examined can fail to demoralise.