Teachers need the power to keep order

Shadow Schools Minister Nick Gibb has added to warnings about the Government's plans to give teenagers a direct right of appeal against exclusion.

"This Labour Government has weakened teachers’ powers to keep order in the classroom", he said.

"Nothing undermines the authority of a headteacher more than an appeals panel returning an excluded pupil back to the same school – even in cases where knives have been involved".

Gibb pledged to give head teachers more freedom to discipline violent and disruptive pupils, and to "make sure teachers have the powers they need to nip problems with behaviour in the bud before they spiral out of control."

Gibb attacks Labour for making it harder for teachers to keep order

Shadow Schools Minister Nick Gibb has attacked Labour for making it harder to expel disruptive pupils after new figures showed a huge increase in children being repeatedly suspended.

Data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveals that at least 867 pupils were suspended from school more than ten times last year.

The number of children repeatedly suspended has therefore nearly trebled in four years, after 310 children were suspended more than ten times in 2003/04.

Nick Gibb warned, “Suspending a child from school over and over again does them no good at all. If a child has been seriously disruptive or violent they should be properly removed so they can get the specialist help they need to return to mainstream education.”

And he stressed, “Teachers want these pupils out of their classroom so other children can learn, but the Government’s restrictions on expulsion have caused this phenomenon of endless suspension.”