a rock has called for the return of "old school'' discipline in the classroom.

Mrs. Valerie Raynor, whose daughter was hit in the head during the lunch break last Friday, told The Royal Gazette children needed to be spanked.

While noting her daughter was all right, Mrs. Raynor said teachers' hands were tied when it came to administering corporal punishment.

"Today they're job requires them to be a mother and a teacher and they just can't do everything,'' she stressed. "They need to bring discipline back.

Children need to be spanked. I'm from the old school and we were disciplined that way.'' Mrs. Raynor said male teachers should be allowed to "spank'' male students and female teachers should be able to deal with female students.

But she said expelling children from school was not a good solution.

"If you expel the child from school the child will only become a threat to the community,'' Mrs. Raynor said. "If the child is not in school and they are too young to work they will only become idle and get into trouble.

"The only way things will get better is if things go back to the old ways with Christian upbringing''.

But Chief Education Officer Mr. Dean Furbert said the much-awaited Code of Conduct will allow principals to hand out "appropriate consequences'' for violent behaviour.

Mr. Furbert was responding to Bermuda Union of Teachers Mr. Michael Charles, who said on Sunday that a teacher could die if school violence was not curbed.

But Mr. Furbert said the challenge of maintaining a safe and productive school environment had to be shared by the whole community.

"It is recognised that the increase in the community of violence, as well as alcohol and drug abuse, has had a tremendous negative impact on the behaviour of students.''