IN AN increasingly politically-correct age, one might hardly expect a head teacher who "cancelled Christmas" at her primary school to be inundated with praise.

But Barbara Milne-Redhead has been, after she carried out her threat to scrap the Christmas festivities at Brennand's Endowed School in the Hodder Valley if pupils did not stop being rude, answering back and using bad language.

She has received approval for her action from well-wishers all over the country - an encouraging sign, surely, that old-fashioned discipline still counts with many parents.

Better still is the proof that it works - for, we hear, behaviour at Brennand's really has improved.

Mrs Milne-Redhead can take the credit already for many happier Christmases in future at her school - and for giving a lax society a worthwhile lesson.

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