Teacher's punishment is starting to trend - dividing the foreign school (5)
I believe the answer is:
lines
'school' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
I don't understand how the rest of the clue works.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for lines that I've seen before include "Skin wrinkles" , "old-fashioned school punishment" , "form of school punishment" , "Ranks" , "Wrinkles; rail tracks" .)