WIREDGOV

New disciplinary powers lay down the law for school trouble makers

DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION AND SKILLS News Release (2007/0061) issued by The Government News Network on 2 April 2007

Tough new powers giving teachers' clear and unequivocal authority to discipline badly behaved pupils become law this week.

Designed to combat disruptive, bullying or offensive behaviour, they give teachers a clear statutory right to restrain, detain and remove unruly pupils, confiscate mobile phones that are being used in a malicious or disruptive way and punish pupils for poor behaviour not just in school, but also on the way to and from school.

The core principles of the new right to discipline include:

* Strong statutory powers to punish pupils for unacceptable behaviour, not just in school, but also on the way to and from school - ensuring pupils are positive ambassadors for their schools when travelling on buses or trains to and from school. This can include weekend detentions.

* A legal duty on schools to make provision for measures to tackle all forms of bullying.

* The legal right to reasonably confiscate inappropriate items from pupils such as mobile phones or music players - personal items should not be used to distract pupils from learning.

* Reaffirming the legal power to use physical force to restrain or control pupils, where there is no alternative way of preventing pupils causing major disruption in schools or harming themselves or others. This puts all legislation regarding restraining or removing pupils into one place.

Other discipline measures in the Education and Inspections Act coming into force in September include:

* Using parenting contracts an earlier intervention to ensure parents tackle problem behaviour before a child has reached the point of being excluded from school.

* Making parents take responsibility for their children in the first five days of exclusion - for too many children, exclusions are seen as extra holiday and they may be tempted to misbehave when unsupervised - through the new offence of failing to ensure their child is not found in a public place without reasonable justification. Failure to do so may result in a fine.

* Ensuring education provision is made for all excluded pupils from day six of their exclusion - permanently excluded pupils only get this from day 16 at present.

These new measures sit alongside the existing social and emotional aspects of learning (SEAL) curriculum, which teaches young people the importance of behaving in a responsible and considerate way.

They also follow confirmation last year that Heads can use airport style metal detector arches and wands to carry out random non-intrusive searches of pupils for weapons, and Home Office legislation within the Violent Crime Reduction Act that will allow Heads to search whole groups of pupils where they suspect one or more may be carrying a knife.

Welcoming the new powers, Alan Johnson said:

"Schools are safe places and I want them to stay that way. These new measures give heads and teachers clear, statutory powers enabling them to deal with poor behaviour swiftly and decisively.

"As OFSTED reported earlier this year, the vast majority of pupils are well behaved and hard working, so many schools may never feel the need to use these measures. But it's important that a small minority of young people should not be allowed to disrupt lessons and undermine the authority of teachers.

"Heads have never had such a range of disciplinary and preventative measures at their disposal, along with clear guidance on how to use them. They will now be able to send out a strong message to trouble-makers that if they misbehave, they can expect to be punished.

"Strong discipline is crucial, but it needs to work in conjunction with responsible parenting and effective teaching on moral issues, which is why we have implemented new parenting contracts and developed the SEAL curriculum. Together, these measures will improve behaviour inside and outside the school gates."

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