9. The greatest concern voiced by new teachers and a very common reason experienced teachers cite for leaving the profession is poor pupil behaviour.
We know that a minority of pupils can cause serious disruption in the classroom. The number of serious physical assaults on teachers has risen. And poorly disciplined children cause misery for other pupils by bullying them and disrupting learning. It is vital that we restore the authority of teachers and head teachers. And it is crucial that we protect them from false allegations of excessive use of force or inappropriate contact. Unless we act more good people will leave the profession – without good discipline teachers cannot teach and pupils cannot learn. So, we will:
- Increase the authority of teachers to discipline pupils by strengthening their powers to search pupils, issue same day detentions and use reasonable force where necessary.
- Strengthen head teachers’ authority to maintain discipline beyond the school gates, improve exclusion processes and empower head teachers to take a strong stand against bullying, especially racist, homophobic and other prejudice-based bullying.
- Change the current system of independent appeals panels for exclusions, so that they take less time and head teachers no longer have to worry that a pupil will be reinstated when the young person concerned has committed a serious offence.
- Trial a new approach to exclusions where schools have new responsibilities for the ongoing education and care of excluded children.
- Improve the quality of alternative provision, encouraging new providers to set up alternative provision Free Schools.
- Protect teachers from malicious allegations – speeding up investigations and legislating to grant teachers anonymity when accused by pupils.
- Focus Ofsted inspection more strongly on behaviour and safety, including bullying, as one of four key areas of inspections.
