Barnardo's: Scrap Teacher's Search Power In Education Bill

PRESS ASSOCIATION - Government plans to tackle bad behaviour in schools fail to deal with the causes of poor conduct, Barnardo's has said.

In a new report, the children's charity argues that the Government's school behaviour policy is "counter-productive" and says more needs to be done to address problems at home.

An Education Bill making its way through Parliament sets out plans to give teachers more powers to deal with poor discipline.

It includes allowing teachers to search pupils and confiscate any item that could disrupt lessons, such as mobile phones. They will also be able to hand out no-notice detentions, and use force where necessary to restrain students.

The Barnardo's report says the charity understands "the political desire to have a firm and robust message on school behaviour and discipline".

But it adds: "We are concerned that the policy which is emerging is actually counter-productive, being narrowly focused on dealing with extreme symptoms of poor behaviour, rather than addressing the underlying causes in a preventative way."

The report says: "The Government's current reduced guidance to schools on behaviour and discipline does not do justice to the evidence. By encouraging teachers to tackle the symptoms of bad behaviour and not address the causes, it risks increasing unfairness by tackling the problem from the wrong end."

The charity is calling for powers contained in the Education Bill to allow teachers to search and use force to be deleted.

The report comes the day after Education Secretary Michael Gove warned that there has been "a slow, and sustained, erosion of legitimate adult authority".

"The only way to reverse this dissolution of legitimate authority is step by step to move the ratchet back in favour of teachers," he said.

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Source: Huffington