My dad did more damage to himself playing football than he did playing rugby.
In my primary school, we could take in whatever the hell kind of ball we wanted to play with. There was none of that foam ball rubbish. Some kids had proper leather footballs.
I think there’s a case to be had that kids should be allowed to be kids - they are protected from the bogey man far too much these days. What does need to be instilled in children is that certain behaviour should not be tolerated. We’ve had a lot of coverage of bad behaviour on the football pitch recently, and I expect that kids see that as acceptable behaviour in that context - regardless of the punishments meted out.
A school will have accepted behaviour on its premises, and those policies extend to the playground. I expect that swearing and being respectful to others is a key value in most schools. Remember - this is a primary school, and I’d go so far as to argue that socialisation at that age is very important, and if certain behaviour is not nipped in the bud at a young age, then it’s going to be more of a problem in later years.
We don’t know the full extent of the issues. As is normal with such stories, there is scant information. Clearly it’s been a problem that’s been worked on by staff in various ways to combat the behaviour, but I expect that it comes to a point when a ban is going to make a bigger point to the kids than a ticking off or a stern word in assembly from the head.
FWIW, my wife’s school had it’s 150th anniversary last week, and they got the punishment book out. This is a volume from the 1940s, when children were given a number of “strokes” (i.e. a whack with a cane) on the hand for various kinds of bad behaviour. “Being silly” was one reason for a punishment.
