Tories attack Labour’s school discipline legacy
By politics.co.uk staff
The last government left teachers without the support they needed, the Conservatives have claimed.
Figures released today showed that over 500 pupils are excluded or suspended every day for abusing adults at schools.
There are four permanent exclusions and 91 suspensions every school day for physical assault against an adult and another four permanent exclusions and 412 suspensions for verbal abuse and threatening behaviour.
“These figures shine a light on Labour’s education legacy,” schools minister Lord Hill commented.
He claimed they reinforced “a deeply worrying picture of a teaching profession under fire and powerless to impose the discipline our classrooms need.”
The coalition government believes bad behaviour is driving teachers away from the profession and is concerned by a lack of male role models in the classroom.
Part of its solution to the problem is encouraging former armed forces personnel to enter the teaching profession.
The recently published education white paper proposes making it easier to restrain abusive pupils, dismissing ‘no-touch’ rules as unnecessary and making it easier to search for items causing disruption in class, including mobile phones and pornography.
