Tough talk on school behaviour may fan flames of indiscipline

Nothing gets a grown-up party going quite like the subject of classroom discipline.

Parents talk fondly of the strict punishments once meted out to unruly pupils during their own school days and rail against the disruptive influences they believe are ruining their own offspring’s education.

The coalition recently added to the debate by issuing a simplified set of guidelines on discipline. According to Charlie Taylor, the Government’s new behaviour tsar, the “clear” advice (just 52 pages long in comparison to previous, more weighty tomes) should put a stop to teachers living in fear of litigation if they touch a child.

The simplified advice explains teachers can use “reasonable force” to break up fights, stop children attacking classmates or teachers, and to remove disruptive kids from lessons.

At a time when almost 1,000 children are suspended from school for abuse and assault every day, and two-thirds of teaching staff admit bad behaviour is driving colleagues out of the classroom, the aim is to give power back to teachers.

But is a more aggressive approach the way really the way forward? Child and educational psychologist Teresa Bliss, who has spent 20 years running units for children with behavioural difficulties, thinks not.

“When a school continually punishes those who get into fights, with detentions and exclusion, it’s like plugging in a volcano – the kids erupt.”

Bliss believes measures suggested in the Government’s guidelines for cracking down on disruptive pupils, which include airport-style screening checks – sound unduly punitive.

“Reading through the guidance it looks as though our schools are a war zone,” she says. “This cannot be further from the truth and it’s a strategy which could potentially damage the relationships between teachers, their pupils and parents.”

Although the numbers may sound dramatic, Bliss points out that if 1,000 students are being suspended each day, as a percentage of the 8.9m educated in England and Wales, that’s less than 0.001 per cent of all students.

“The danger is this new guidance gives teachers who are not good classroom managers – and who are confrontational with pupils – carte blanche to continue with that behaviour,” she highlights.

In Jackson’s view, the best way to encourage good classroom behaviour is a combination of strong teaching and earning children’s respect.

While “zero tolerance” strategies promoting punishment and strict discipline can sound attractive, research suggests they simply don’t produce results.

A report by the American Psychological Association (APA) in 2009 found that zero tolerance policies in use throughout US school districts have not been effective in reducing violence or promoting learning in school. Instead, the authors called for alternatives, such as “restorative practice”, which resolve conflict and repair harm, to be implemented.

In Britain, the executive director of the Hull Centre for Restorative Practice, Chris Straker, says schools using restorative ways of working are reporting real improvements in academic outcomes.

“A recent Goldsmiths University report on the effectiveness of anti-bullying strategies in schools demonstrated that developing a restorative ethos and culture was rated as highly effective.”