Westminster view: Combating school bullying
We are fortunate in Chelmsford in having some excellent schools, and I am always encouraged when visiting them to see so many happy and well-behaved children thriving and expanding their knowledge and horizons, whether it be in the classroom or through extra-curricular pursuits. I saw this earlier this month, when I presented Boswells School's Film Club with their Star School Award.
However, we all know that children can at times get unruly, and some – albeit a minority – can engage in horrid bullying towards their peers and classmates. That is why I would like to see more powers put in place to allow teachers and head teachers the freedom to discipline those who disrupt the education of others and cause so much misery and emotional distress.
Official Government figures have revealed that just ninety pupils across the country were expelled last year for school bullying, despite new survey finding that alarmingly half of all 14-year-old children have been bullied.
Across Essex, no pupils were expelled last year from our state schools. This is not uncommon. In over two-thirds of Local Authorities across England, not a single child was expelled for bullying. Although you would be forgiven for thinking that this is good news and shows the excellent standard of behaviour of our local children – incidentally, excellent behaviour which I think is the norm – in Essex, 120 pupils were suspended from state schools, meaning the disruptive students returned to the school where they caused misery for their classmates. This practice has got to change.
Over the last ten years the rules in place have deliberately made it more difficult for schools to expel pupils, undermining the authority of head teachers and meaning bullies end up back at the same school as their victims.
Bullying makes far too many children's lives a misery. But the Government's own figures show that in the vast majority of cases bullies are returned to the same school as their victims after a short punishment, rather than being expelled.
The key to tackling bullying is giving Essex's teachers the powers they need to crack down on bad behaviour. But over recent years, the balance of power in the classroom has shifted too far in favour of disruptive pupils.
It is common sense that good discipline is essential to ensure that all pupils can benefit from the opportunities provided by education, without disruption from others. That is why I believe our local schools should be given the power to take a zero tolerance approach towards serious offences such as bullying.
Schools should have the final say on the exclusion of disruptive pupils, by abolishing the appeals panels which too often overrule them. And the law needs to change to give teachers unequivocal powers to maintain discipline, including confiscating items such as mobile phones if the school has banned them. I also believe home-school contracts must be made enforceable as requirements of admission and grounds for exclusion. And to ensure better provision for those excluded, we should make greater use of voluntary and independent providers of remedial education, rather than relying solely on Pupil Referral Units.
Furthermore, our teachers must be given greater protection from malicious allegations made by pupils. Changes need to be made to ensure that when teachers or youth group leaders are faced with charges of negligence as a result of an accident on a sporting or adventure activity, the courts will require a higher burden of proof of negligence. I am a huge admirer of the Western Australian concept, whereby ‘reckless disregard' rather than ordinary ‘negligence', must be proved.
Although I see so many happy faces when I visit our local schools, I am all too well aware that, like in almost every school up and down the country, there may be those whose lives are being made a misery through the heartless bullying of others. I want our teachers to have the tools and freedoms they need to maintain discipline in the classroom before it spirals out of control.
