Disruptive children will be sent to ‘boot camps’ run by former soldiers under Government plans.
Expelled pupils are to receive a ‘military-style education’ at the special units separate from mainstream schools.
Quiet word: Disruptive children could be given lessons in behaviour by the likes of RSM Jenny Leckenby at school boot camps
Former army officers who fought in Afghanistan will keep the youngsters under close supervision while teaching them teamwork and basic skills.
TEACHERS TAKE
3m SICK DAYS
Teachers are calling in sick at the rate of 15,000 every school day.
Almost three million working days a year were lost with some 308,800 teachers taking at least one day off in 2009, according to latest official figures.
The rising levels of sick leave mean more pupils are taught by supply teachers who may not be specialists in the subjects they are teaching. They are also expensive, up to £210 a day.
Michael Gove blamed the problem on stress caused by the amount of bureaucracy introduced by Labour.
A spokesman for the Education Department said yesterday’s Bill would cut the burden of red tape.
There will be a strong emphasis on physical exercise including assault courses and training similar to the Duke of Edinburgh awards scheme.
Children will be taught maths skills by learning how to use a map in a forest. They will also be expected to volunteer in their community.
Michael Gove yesterday paved the way for the measures as he unveiled his Education Bill, which focuses on boosting standards and improving behaviour in schools.
If passed, the Bill will grant the Education Secretary powers to order a local council to close failing schools.
And it will strip academy sponsors of their involvement in a school if that school under-performs.
The Bill also seeks to hand teachers more power to tackle bad behaviour in the classroom while freeing them of the reams of unnecessary red tape and bureaucracy introduced under Labour.
SEARCHES FOR
'LEGAL HIGHS'
Teachers are to be given powers to search pupils for pornography and ‘legal highs’ such as mephedrone.
Staff will be able to search children for anything contained on a school’s list of banned items.
This could include mobile phones and video cameras, hardcore pornography, and legal drugs. At present teachers can only search for weapons and illegal drugs.
The Education Secretary hopes the plan will help teachers clamp down on bad behaviour. He also hopes it will put an end to bullying in which cruel images and videos are circulated by mobile phones and on the internet.
There are currently 16,000 youngsters under the age of 16 who are outside the school system, often because they have been excluded and no school will take them in.
At present they are taught in one of more than 400 Pupil Referral Units which local authorities are obliged to provide.
Yesterday Mr Gove said most local authority-run referral units ‘are not up to snuff’ and expressed his desire for them to be closed and reopened as academies.
He said he envisaged that they would be run by and modelled on charities such as Skill Force, which trains and hires veterans to teach disadvantaged and disruptive young children.
Peter Cross, OBE, head of Skill Force, said he had ‘been in talks’ with ministers about the possibility to running alternative referral units based on the current Skill Force courses.
Skill Force already ‘teaches’ 4,000 pupils a year on its once-a-week, two-year course.
These pupils, often on the brink of expulsion, are selected by schools to attend the courses.
NO MORE SNOOPING
INTO LUNCH BOXES
School snoops will no longer pry into pupils’ lunch boxes under measures in the Education Bill.
The schools watchdog, Ofsted, will be stripped of its power to inspect ‘peripheral’ issues such as school food and pupils’ well-being.
The power had forced schools to keep detailed records of children’s purchases from the school canteen, monitor their eating habits and check the contents of their packed lunches.
Ofsted inspections will now be limited to four criteria instead of the current 27. These are pupil achievement; teaching; leadership and management; and behaviour and safety.
Mr Cross said the charity has incredible success rates which he attributes to providing the pupils, many of whom are from single families, with a strong male role model.
He added: ‘Many of the veterans have served in Afghanistan. They are used to solving problems. And they have all been given military-style training. They adapt this for the youngsters and they treat them like adults.’
Mr Cross said the charity had also placed injured war veterans alongside their teachers with dramatic effects.
‘It teaches them about responsibility, compassion and courage.’
The Bill also makes it easier for head teachers to expel violent pupils.
At the moment they can exclude a pupil for carrying a knife or acting violently. But their decision can be overruled and the head is forced to reinstate the pupil. The Bill states that a heads’ decision can be reviewed but it cannot be overturned.
It will also give the Government more power to intervene in schools that are failing and where pupil behaviour is out of control.
GOVE: EXTREMISM IS
A REAL PROBLEM
Extremism is a problem in schools, Mr Gove claimed yesterday.
The Education Secretary said he will establish a unit within the Department of Education to monitor radicalism.
Called the Due Diligence Unit, it will first vet every adult involved in the establishment of his ‘free schools’ – those set up by local parents, teachers or charities.
It will then investigate the background of teachers, staff, governors and charities involved in other schools.
The move follows the revelation that children as young as six are being taught brutal Sharia law punishments, including how to hack off a criminal’s hand or foot, at ‘weekend schools’ for Muslim pupils.
Mr Gove will have the right to order a local authority to close a school that is in special measures, requires significant improvement or has failed to comply with a warning notice.
The Government will also be able to direct councils to give a warning notice to an under-performing school, He said that local authorities had not been tough enough on failing schools in the past.
‘More than two-thirds of local authorities had never issued a warning notice; only 100 warning notices had been issued during the history of this provision,’ he added.
‘Now we can insist that local authorities issue warning notices, and not just for schools in special measures but also for schools in the Ofsted category above that – notice to improve – and also for schools where there are real reasons for us to have concern.’
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