CORONATION Street made the nation think about corporal punishment this week.

Mild mannered teacher Ken Barlow shocked viewers when he launched a right handed punch at problem pupil Aidan Critchley.

The teenager fell in a heap with blood pouring from his month. Since, Ken has been troubled by the spontaneous outpouring of aggression and feels ashamed.

Other characters in the Granada soap have been supporting him, saying Aidan deserved it due to his constant bad behaviour. They were angered when Ken was charged with assault and promised to support him.

While fictional, the soap's storyline has highlighted that some schools find it difficult to control especially unruly pupils and how teachers can be pushed to extremes in exasperation.

Should there be controlled physical punishment or discipline in the classroom?

Those in favour of caning or the slipper say it would be an easy measure to sort out such persistent troublemakers. But critics claim that argument is over simplified.

Corporal punishment was banned in government funded schools in 1986 and outlawed in privately funded schools in 1998.

Simon Jones, the divisional secretary of the Blackburn with Darwen National Union of Teachers, while admitting all teachers may not support the stance, said: "The NUT have been has been against corporal punishment before it was banned. That has always been our stance."

His co-secretary, Brian Peacock, headteacher of Shadsworth Junior School, Blackburn, added: "The theory behind the stance is that violence solves nothing.

"Usually all you are doing is making the situation worse by inflaming it. There was once an open evening for a celebration at a school where I used to teach that made me think.

"They had an past pupil who looked in an old book punishment said he got canned on that day and that day.

"He said it had never done him any harm, but I thought it didn't do you any good if you needed it everyday.

"I don't think it does any good at all and I am not convinced by those people who say it doesn't do any harm."