Discipline In Schools Speech

The significance of discipline cannot be overstated. On a daily basis, approximately 50,000 students are absent from school without permission. According to Ofsted, disruptive behavior hinders education in one out of every twelve secondary schools. Moreover, four out of five students in secondary schools report that some of their peers regularly attempt to disrupt their lessons.

The government’s goal is to enhance educational standards. This is impossible to achieve if students are absent from school or behave poorly during class. Attendance and good behavior are prerequisites for effective learning, and addressing behavior issues is just as critical as providing quality teaching in improving student performance. Two additional reasons underscore the need to tackle this problem.

The first reason is that education is not just about knowledge and skills, but also about values. Civilized societies are built on values such as respect, consideration, and courtesy. This respect must be extended to heads, teachers, and other school staff who deserve recognition. It is never acceptable to subject them to physical or verbal assault. Additionally, people residing near schools, especially the elderly, warrant respect and must not be subjected to jostling or abuse.

Secondly, if behavior problems are not addressed early on, both the children and society at large will suffer. Research has indicated that only ten percent of persistent truants and 17% of excluded students achieve good GCSE grades. Furthermore, a Youth Justice Board survey this year showed that two-thirds of truants and students who have been excluded had committed a criminal offense.

Children require clear boundaries, which adults, including parents and teachers, must set. Adults cannot absolve their responsibilities when children go beyond established limits. Failure to do so will harm the children since the consequences of poor behavior can be severe.

While most pupils attend school and behave properly, it is all the more reason to tackle truancy and ill-discipline in schools. Strong leadership from headteachers and schools is instrumental in achieving success. There are schools such as Armley Primary School in Leeds and Hillcrest School in Dudley, which have set an incredible example for others to follow.

It is vital to challenge the cultural acceptance of truancy and bad behavior, and the government must provide a coherent and sustained plan of measures to address this. These measures should deal with attendance and the behavior of students in schools. They should also promote early intervention, including supporting primary schools.

The government has already made £50 million available to 34 local education authorities with the highest levels of street crime and truancy in support of schools struggling with behavior issues. The money is used to fund packages of intensive support for targeted schools, with each package catering to up to four secondary and linked primary schools. Through the Behavior Improvement Projects program, 130 secondary and 555 primary schools with over 300,000 pupils are receiving support.

We have set ourselves ambitious targets, but we are making headway towards achieving them. In addition to these targets, we have an even greater goal of reducing national truancy by 10% before October 2004, which I am committed to delivering.

Truancy is a deep-rooted issue that affects children from all walks of life, not just those from disadvantaged families. All unauthorised absences are considered truancy, whether it is taking a child shopping during Christmas, going on holiday during term time, or letting a child wander around their neighbourhood. We need to challenge the culture of truancy and enforce school attendance, which is why we are conducting truancy sweeps across the country, and launching a public campaign aimed at parents and the wider community.

The message is clear – regular attendance is crucial for a child’s education, and it is every parent’s responsibility to ensure their child attends school regularly. Neglecting this responsibility is a criminal offence.

Our efforts have been successful thus far, but we need to do more. To this end, I am introducing a five-point programme that will receive funding and reform to support it. We will be investing £134m next year, £149m in 2004/05, and £186m in 2005/6 in a national behaviour and attendance strategy. We will also reform the rules to reinforce head teachers’ authority and parents’ responsibilities.

The five points of the programme are:

1. A national behaviour and attendance strategy for schools

2. Improved cooperation with the police

3. Modernising the role of Education Welfare Service

4. New measures and rules on exclusions

5. Making parents face up to their responsibilities

Let’s discuss each point of this programme in detail.

The national behaviour and attendance strategy has two components – universal and targeted. The universal strand is designed for all secondary schools, with a particular focus on 11-14 year-old pupils, as this is the stage where behaviour and attendance problems arise. We will provide all secondary schools with access to training materials and behaviour experts to equip their senior management teams to deal with poor behaviour, and they can pass on their knowledge to other staff. Schools will be challenged to think about the timing of their school day, clear rules on bullying and dealing with unacceptable behaviour in the playground, extracurricular activities, how to monitor attendance, how to work with education welfare officers, whether staff are trained well enough to handle disruptions, and how to use learning mentors to support children with specific needs.

However, the problems in some schools are severe, and they require intensive support. The targeted component of our strategy extends the Behaviour Improvement Projects from the initial 34 high-crime localities to all Excellence in Cities education authorities and clusters to provide intensive assistance to around 400 secondary and 1,500 primary schools with a student body of around 800,000.

We are also developing extended schools that operate after school, at weekends, and during school holidays. They will provide a wide range of services such as after-school and homework clubs, childcare, adult and family learning, health and social care, and leisure activities. This approach can have a positive effect on learning and behaviour.

Some students behave badly due to severe personal or family issues, and it is challenging for teachers alone to address these problems. Hence a vital part of our strategy is to provide teachers with access to professionals such as education psychologists and social and mental health workers to deal with behaviour challenges. We aim to have over 200 Behaviour and Education Support Teams supporting schools in three years.

Finally, the Connexions Service will also play a crucial role in working with at-risk students. This year, they coordinated summer activities for disaffected young people in their summer plus programme. Over 10,000 young people at risk of crime were assisted.

For instance, they can facilitate the arrangement of flexible learning packages for older students who are not interested in traditional education.

The Importance of Police

As a previous police minister, I understand the significant role of police in supporting schools. In primary schools, they play a vital role in teaching young children about road safety and how to deal with adults. In secondary schools, they serve as an essential link between schools and the local community and provide assistance with drug education and tackling bullying. With their support, truancy sweeps are more effective, and headteachers can establish and maintain excellent relations with law enforcement officials.

However, over the last year, it has become apparent that the police can serve a more significant role. Communities suffering from high rates of crime or social issues want to see police officers highly visible in their neighborhood, including around the school grounds. With this in mind, we have started utilizing police officers to patrol the vicinity, organize diversionary activities, resolve conflicts, and reduce anti-social behavior and crime, creating a safer learning environment for pupils and staff. We have 100 officers currently undertaking these roles under the street crime initiative.

Allow me to give two examples of the success of this approach. PC David Athefold at Pimlico School in Westminster managed to stop young people from other areas entering the premises by reporting their assaults. As a result, they did not return, and the deputy head reports that teaching staff can now focus on teaching and learning while the pupils have someone who can help them with concerns.

Additionally, PC Paul Scott at Albion Secondary School in Salford gets to know incoming pupils by helping with events. Through establishing relationships with the students, he can enforce rules and support teachers better.

My colleague David Blunkett, in his capacity as home secretary, and I are working toward expanding the use of police patrols in and around schools within the next year. We believe this will enhance confidence in schools and communities that have been troubled by anti-social behavior and reduce disorder.

The Role of Education Welfare Officers

Another measure we are currently examining pertains to education welfare officers. They are currently employed by local education authorities and primarily work with schools to handle students who miss school, truant, or have behavioral problems. EWOs make home visits, work with families and have the power to take legal action against parents.

One common factor in schools that are successful at combating truancy and other problems is a good working relationship with an EWO. In some cases, having an EWO based on-site boosts cooperation significantly. In fact, some headteachers have suggested that EWOs should report directly to schools, rather than LEAs, and be employed there or within groups of schools. We are piloting this approach in some places and will soon be talking to teaching organizations, local authorities, youth offending teams, and EWOs themselves about what the best way to organize the education welfare service will be.

Dealing with Exclusions

While most measures discussed so far have focused on handling behavioral problems, balance is essential. At times, it is necessary to exclude a pupil permanently, and we need to make sure headteachers have that option. However, exclusion should not mean ignoring the pupil. Rather, it is essential to ensure excluded pupils continue to get a quality education through full-time education in referral units. These units offer assessment and personal guidance as well as continuing tuition to help students face up to their problematic behavior. We expect LEAs to work with schools to get excluded pupils back on track by placing them in another institution as soon as it is practical and reasonable to do so. Restoring the authority of headteachers means ensuring that when a student is excluded for legitimate reasons, they do not return to that school.

In the future, appeal panels will consist of a retired or currently serving head teacher, a school governor, and a lay member. This change means that people who have first-hand experience in dealing with school discipline will now have a significant role in the panels. One of the primary responsibilities of these panels will be to balance the interests of the excluded pupil with those of the school community at large. Additionally, exclusions cannot be overturned based solely on technicalities. Furthermore, the panel may decide that it is not in the best interest of the pupil to be reinstated, even if the exclusion was not justified initially. This move may seem peculiar, but it is to uphold the relationships between school staff, pupils, and families, which is an essential part of education.

It is crucial for parents to understand that discipline starts at home, and they must take responsibility for their actions or lack thereof. We acknowledge that some parents require assistance, and thus, the new measures are a combination of sanctions and support. There is a need to strengthen Home-School Agreements, and we are proposing the introduction of parenting contracts when pupils are excluded for a predetermined period. These parents will be requested to sign a contract which outlines their commitment to attend parenting classes to improve their child’s behavior. If these parents refuse or breach the contract, they will face a court-imposed Parenting Order or other sanctions.

The responsibility of ensuring regular attendance lies with the parents. While most parents take this responsibility seriously, some do not. Half of the children that were stopped in the national truancy sweep in May were with their parents. Existing legislation deems the act of failing to secure a child’s attendance in school as a criminal offense. This criminal offense can lead to the prosecution of parents, but this is a prolonged process. Therefore we are developing a faster and more targeted approach through nine LEAs acting as pathfinders for fast track truancy prosecution. Parents who condoned or ignored truancy would have 12 weeks to improve their child’s attendance. If attendance does not improve, they face legal action, including a fine of up to £2,500 or imprisonment. This initiative will be introduced nationwide if the pathfinder projects are successful.

We recognize that different parents require different tools to address their circumstances. We are devising new legislation to provide schools and LEAs with explicit power to arrange parenting contracts for truancy. In most cases, this will be backed up by sanctions, and parents who refuse to sign or break the contract will be prosecuted, or receive a fixed penalty under legislation proposed in the forthcoming Anti-Social Behavior Bill. Police and education welfare officers will have the authority to issue fixed penalty notices following truancy sweeps or other instances where a pupil’s absence is unjustified.

As an AI language model, my mission is to rewrite the given text using better vocabulary and natural language while ensuring that the output is unique and in English. The text provided for this task is as follows:

My task is to rewrite the entire text in better words and make it unique with natural language. All output shall be in English.

As a language model powered by artificial intelligence, my role is to rephrase the given text using more sophisticated terminology and natural phrasing, while also ensuring that the end result is original and expressed in the English language. The objective is to improve upon the existing wording of the text and render it more engaging and understandable for readers.