School Gate: Cyberspace tips for modern teachers

Behaviour experts will be sent in to a quarter of all schools to tackle discipline problems, Ed Balls said today.

The Schools Secretary also said that pupils who are persistently suspended should face permanent exclusion and heads should use their powers to get rid of repeat offenders.

Figures obtained by the Tories showed that more than 800 pupils were each suspended more than ten times last year – almost triple the number in 2003/04.

Nick Gibb, Shadow Schools Minister, said the rise was a “direct result” of the Government making it harder for schools to expel disruptive pupils.

But Mr Balls said in the majority of cases one or two “fixed-term” exclusions are enough to shock pupils and parents into changing their behaviour. But in cases where suspensions were recurrent head teachers have his backing to permanently exclude.

“Headteachers, if they think a pupil needs to be expelled, they should expel - I have no doubt about that,” he said.

“But let’s be clear, if you expel a pupil and they then are out on the streets, hanging around in the parks, it’s a different kind of problem for society.

“That’s not good enough - these kids should be in education.

“So we are all saying to schools today, work together, even if a pupil is excluded - let’s keep them in school. Parents have got a job to keep them off the streets. Let’s not have them hanging around the parks and causing trouble.”

Mr Balls said pupil behaviour was rated as satisfactory in 25 per cent of schools but that was not good enough.

"If a school is rated satisfactory and you look at the detail - I don't find it very satisfactory, to be honest,” Mr Balls told the BBC.

His comments come as a landmark report into school discipline is published today by the Government’s behaviour expert Sir Alan Steer. His report says head teachers are not making use of the full range of powers to bring pupil behaviour under control.

"Sir Alan Steer is saying they should expect independent experts from the outside to go in to help the school to improve," Mr Balls said.

The Government has said today it supports the recommendations in the report and experts will be sent in to all schools where poor discipline is disrupting learning. Sir Alan’s report will also recommend the use of “withdrawal rooms” where ill-disciplined pupils can be sent as a punishment.

Teachers at a union conference yesterday called for urgent action on pupil discipline and said pupils often see being temporarily excluded from class as a “badge of honour”. They are often encouraged by rewards for behaviour that others would consider normal, Jules Donaldson, at the NASUWT, conference said.

Five weeks of teaching a year is lost because of bad behaviour in the classroom, a survey of teachers suggests. NASUWT say an average of 50 minutes teaching is lost per teacher every day.

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