Improving discipline and behaviour is a top priority in the education White Paper.
The government says that the quality of teaching and learning is inseparable from behaviour in schools.
While 74 per cent of secondary schools now have ‘good or better’ behaviour according to Ofsted, 20 per cent have behaviour that is only satisfactory and six per cent have behaviour that is unsatisfactory or worse. All this is damaging to pupils education.
To tackle this the White Paper has taken onboard many of the recommendations of the recent Steer Group report to ‘reaffirm respect’ in the classroom.
The Steer Group’s report found that there is little consistency in dealing with the poor behaviour, particularly the low-level disruption to lessons - back chat, rudeness, calling out in class and so on - that makes teaching and learning more difficult, saps morale and is widely cited by teachers as a key reason for leaving the profession.
The White Paper sets out greater powers for teachers and proposes that all schools have clear discipline and behaviour codes, where everybody knows what is expected of them and what the sanctions are for misbehavior.
Schools will be encouraged to work with parents to make sure they understand what is expected of them when it comes to the discipline and behaviour of their youngsters.
The White Paper also sets out a clear and legal right for teachers to discipline pupils, which for the first time will be backed by law.
This will mean that no parent can again question a teacher’s authority on this matter, when he or she is acting reasonably.
The new proposals give headteachers and schools the lead when it comes to local discipline policies, providing them with the funding and the powers to set-up their own on or off-site solutions for disruptive pupils.
This will mean that schools have increased access to learning mentors and on-site units to help them deal with disruptive pupils. Schools will also have the power to set-up off site schemes, like the Pupil Referral Units that have proved to be successful in supporting pupils who have been excluded.
Under the new proposals parents will not only have a greater involvement in running schools but they will also be expected to take more responsibility for their children’s bad behavior. Parenting orders will be extended to deal with any parent’s who will not engage with voluntary measures.
There will also be a new offence, with fines for the parents of excluded children, if their children are found in a public place during school.
The government hopes that the new proposals will allow teachers and schools to effectively deal with discipline and behaviour problems. For the first time power will be devolved to heads so that they can tackle problems with solutions specifically tailored to their school.
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