GOVERNMENT RULES’ PREVENT

ACTION ON SCHOOL BULLIES’

DECEMBER 11, 2009

GOVERNMENT rules are preventing Cumbrian headteachers from taking action against school bullies.

So says John Stevenson, the Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate for Carlisle.

Even though a new survey has found that half of all 14-year-old children have been bullied,  just ninety pupils across the country were expelled from school last year for bullying.

            And in Cumbria not a single child was expelled for bullying.

“Are we really to believe that in all of Cumbria’s 50 state secondary schools there was not a single case of a bully who deserved to be expelled?” John asks.

John says that since 1997 Labour Government rules 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.

“The sad fact is that bullying is just as rife in Cumbria as it is everywhere else, but headteachers are almost powerless to do anything about it,” he says.

He says excluding troublesome pupils for just a short time is no proper answer to the problem.

“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,” John says.

John says the balance of power in the classroom has shifted too far in favour of disruptive pupils, with teachers being denied the powers they need to crack down on bad behaviour

“Schools should be given the power to take a zero tolerance approach towards serious offences such as bullying and teachers should be given the tools they need to maintain discipline in the classroom before it spirals out of control,” he says. 

A Conservative Government would give schools the final say on the exclusion of disruptive pupils, by abolishing the appeals panels which too often overrule them, John says.

And the law would be changed to give teachers unequivocal powers to maintain discipline - including confiscating items such as mobile phones if the school has banned them. 

“Good discipline is essential to ensure that all pupils can benefit from the opportunities provided by education, without disruption from others,” John says.

ENDS