Save the 'Open Door Rule'

In 2005, after many years of debate, the school prefects (Purples) at The Kings School Canterbury successfully brought about a new school rule called 'Open Door Rule'.

The rule entitled members of the top year (6a) to visit the bedrooms of members of the opposite sex also in 6a. The rule included a set of times during the week when this visiting could occur. The rule also insisted that the door of the bedroom be open during the visit, and that the visiting pupil must sign in, using the house signing in book.

Breaches of the rule resulted in punishment. In the recent years preceding 2005, no pupils were allowed to enter the bedrooms of members of the opposite sex, whatever year group you were in.

For the past three years the rule has worked to great effect. It has given the freedom that a 6a student would like but has also ensured that nothing of a sexual nature has occurred behind a closed door. The point of the 'Open Door Rule' is to allow 6a pupils to socialise freely in a natural environment. The fact that the door is open, makes sure that it is socialising and relaxing which occurs in the room rather than sex.

It must be remembered that 6a students are all 17 or 18 years old. In just one year, the 6a students will be free to do as they please at University or on a Gap Year. They will be able to visit bedrooms and even share bedrooms with members of the opposite sex at any time of the day, whilst being able to shut the door. Wouldn't it be a strange environment (University or Gap Year) for students to find themselves in, if they had been segregated from members of the opposite sex for the last 5 years at school? It is surely a school's responsibility to prepare pupils for University and beyond. What better way than to allow the top year pupils to visit each other with careful restrictions to ensure appropriate behaviour?

A couple found in a ‘compromising situation’ behind a closed door, is of course not a breach of ‘Open Door Rule’ but of the full school rules. If a couple wanted to have sex and were willing to risk breaking the school rules, the abolition of ‘Open Door Rule’ would not affect their choice. The point is that abolishing ‘Open Door Rule’ will not result in less couples having sex in school, but just take away a freedom that 160 pupils are able to use in socialising with their friends.

The above reasons (and many more which cannot fit into this short description of the situation we find ourselves in) are why the school made the change to the rules in 2005. It has been announced that in the first few weeks of March 2008, the 'Open Door Rule' will be under review.

It would be a pity, if the ‘Open Door Rule’ was scrapped after three years of success. Taking away the freedom of 160 pupils due to fears that a few might have more sex (which is something that 6a pupils are of course legally allowed to do) is perhaps unreasonable. Abolishing ‘Open Door Rule’ would mean no pupils would be able to visit the bedrooms of the other sex under any circumstances. The benefit of a co-educational school is surely the natural mixed environment that adolescents are part of. An environment where 18 year old males and females are segregated from each other’s bedrooms like young children, is not a natural environment. The school should try evolve rather than take backward steps which restrict and upset the school community.

The Purple Body (School Prefects) of The King’s School Canterbury