I watched 5 youths being force marched up a hill in the Lakes this year, the minders clearly at the end of their tethers & apologising to us for the bad language. The youths then took off up some cliffs with the minders saying they didn't care if they fell off...

bix, edinburgh, uk

Bring back corporal punishment, & stop this ludicrous, mis placed ideology that you have to keep pandering to the unruly. If they keep getting rewarded for being bad, wheres the incentive to stop. God, its hardly rocket science, make them feel pain & they will stop!

Pete, St Albans, England

this really sticks in my craw

mustaffa, eastwood notts,

Why should bad behaviour be rewarded? Send the good kids to the Adventure Training School, and send the ones that misbehave to a Brat Camp run by ex-Army personnel, they will soon shape up.

Stone, Enger, Germany

What sort of message is this sending to kids? "bad behaviour is rewarde" Any kid will see a quad bike holliday as a reward and a good time, not a lesson. Hint: if you want to send them somewhere for a lesson... try military boot camp.
It is time to bring back the draft, teach some diciplin!

Mike, Bristol,

This government really has lost the plot hasn't it. Roll on May 2010. Can we pursue these light fingered miscreants for our 1 trillion pounds in taxes mispent since 1997? They could clearly improve their behaviour if they spent some time on holiday "at Her Majesty's Pleasure"

John Small, Faversham, UK

This is nothing new - I worked as an adventure training instructor in the late '80s and often instructed groups of 'Intermediate Treatment' children as they used to be called.

I cannot comment on whether it did any good as I never heard whether the adventure activities changed their behaviour.

C Harris, Lagos, Nigeria

Why don't we reward (particularly disadvantaged) children for being good? What sort of message does this send out? Keep your head down & work & you will get nothing, behave so badly you are excluded from school & you will have a fabulous holiday? There must be a better way to instil discipline etc!

Margaret, Ely, England

Spare the rod, spoil the child, I know it may be old fasioned now as we are told we are not allowed to punish children, but look what's happened. There has been enough evidence gathered over the past thirty years or so to see that the softly softly approach does not work.

Steve D, Rickmansworth,

What do the "good" kids get? Whatever happened to rewarding effort and achievement? In my experience (I'm a teacher) these sorts of things make no difference to the behaviour of the kids once they're back in school. They get a week's holiday for messing about and disrupting the education of others.

Carol, Essex, UK

I wonder how many of those children have 150 pounds to contribute.

I believe that the government would do better to dismiss the public servants and bureacrats that administer those schemes and just give each child 400 pounds with a list of ways and places to spend it. Save on the salaries.

Shahar Helel, Perth , Australia

The thought of children doing something fun and being rewarded for probably doing something bad is all around backwards. Did someone forget children and teenagers turn into adults and run the world, or should we all steal and hurt each other and seek rewards for our behavior?

Spencer, Calgary, AB, Canada

This is just insane!! Why be good? Good kids dont get to go on adventure holidays. Thats the message sent out to kids. They tried it in the past, and it FAILED, and now they get the grand idea of trying it again. Madness, simply madness!! The sooner this lot is out, the better!!!

Arthur, Newcastle,

Adventurous activities should be part of all childrens' experience and could cut exclusion, teen pregnancy and ASBO rates. But offer it early, not as a reward for being excluded.

Diana, Derby,

When I was teaching it was obvious that well-behaved pupils objected to the unfairness of unruly pupils getting commended for behaving occasionally in a lesson, This takes the level of unfairness to extreme lengths.
This is a crass, expensive mistake.

V Glover, Penzance, UK

Rewarding the anti-social ? Madness. What is next for this new labour government ? Starting to punish those kids who behave themselves and get good grades ?

frank, swindon, england