"Many, O Lord my God are the wonders you have done"
Psalm 40 v 5
Discipline Policy
What is discipline?
At Emmaus School the word discipline is defined as training within a loving relationship.
The long term goal of discipline
To develop mature, self-controlled young adults who live lives to please and serve God.
The short term goals of discipline
Ø To correct and train in the day to day situations arising from school life.
Ø To face and resolve the results of disobedience.
Ø To restore relationship between quarrelling students, or between staff and pupils.
The importance of relationship in discipline
Successful discipline can only take place in the context of strong, loving relationships between staff and pupils. Teachers will make every effort to build good relationships where there is mutual love and respect with pupils. Teachers accept the responsibility that they themselves impart their own standards and attitudes to the pupils. Teachers will be honest and admit to the children that they are not perfect, and that they themselves are under the loving discipline of the Holy Spirit. Teachers will not see it as a sign of weakness to apologise to a child if they are in the wrong.
Child development and discipline
Discipline of children should involve taking into account their age and stage. Young children need many external controls, and they need to be trained in first time obedience. The increasing maturity of the children means that the adults gradually remove some controls in order to let them exercise choice, suffer consequences and learn from mistakes. Through this process, the children’s behaviour will increasingly be shaped by self-control and less by external controls.
The School Rules
Jesus said that all rules are summed up in these two commandments: - “ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbour as yourself.’ ” Luke 10:27. ¹
The apostle Paul said that the whole law is summed up in this single commandment (Galations 5:14), and James said that if you keep this royal commandment you will always be doing what is right. (James 2:8)
These two great commandments, therefore, will be used as the standard by which the behaviour of the School community is judged.
The Discipline Cycle – a redemptive approach
This approach to matters of discipline follows God’s pattern of dealing with Adam and Eve’s disobedience as recounted in Genesis 3.
Ø Accountability – v.9 Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?”
Ø Questioning – v.11 “Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?”
Ø Consequences – v. 22 – 23 Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” –
Therefore, the LORD God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken.
(There were several serious consequences for all concerned in this account; the preceding example shows, however, that God acts out of love, not vindictiveness.)
Ø Restoration – v.15 – the promise of the coming Saviour – “And I will put enmity between you (Satan) and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”
The process summarised in the following diagram takes around 15 – 20 minutes. It is to be done in private following incidents of persistent disobedience and moral violation such as bullying, fighting, stealing or lying. It must not be done in anger but with the aim of restoring relationship. It may be necessary for pupils to have a period of cooling off so that the process can take place calmly. This cycle also works in smaller discipline issues.
¹All Bible quotations are taken from the New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1982