§ Mr. StrawTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will publish the report of the inquiry under the chairmanship of Lord Elton into violence in schools; and if he will make a statement on its conclusions.
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§ Mr. Harry GreenwayTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science when he expects to publish the report of the committee of inquiry into discipline in schools; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Kenneth BakerI am arranging for the committee's report to be published today. Copies of the report are being placed in the Libraries of both Houses of Parliament. I am grateful to Lord Elton and his colleagues for carrying out a thorough and wide-ranging inquiry.
The Government believe that immediate action should be taken to deal with indiscipline in schools and violence, wherever it occurs. It fully supports teachers in their efforts to establish good order in the classroom. It welcomes the contribution which the committee's report makes to solving these problems.
The Government have decided to act immediately on the following recommendations in the report:
I have accepted the committee's recommendation that in future all initial teacher training courses should include separate, compulsory elements of practical training in how to manage pupil behaviour, and that these skills should be a key factor in assessing a student's performance and competence to teach.
I propose to set a clear national standard for the amount of time which teacher trainers must spend in school, so as to ensure that they have sufficient recent practical experience. I shall take action forward through the review which I am conducting of the criteria for approval of initial teacher training courses.
Subject to the necessary consultation, I propose to accept the committee's recommendation that the management of pupil behaviour should become a national priority in the local education authority training grants scheme for in-service training of teachers in 1990–91.
I accept the committee's conclusion that the procedures for excluding pupils from school should be monitored closely. I propose to institute a monitoring scheme for two years, rather than the five years recommended in the report. I will require reports in all cases where a head teacher's decision to exclude a child from a school is overruled by either the governing body or the local education authority. At the same time I shall require full details of incidents leading to exclusions, so that we have a national picture. At the end of that period I shall decide on the future of the existing statutory provisions.
Subject to the necessary statutory consultations with the local authority associations, I propose to make an education support grant available to encourage local education authorities to work up coherent plans to address the problem of difficult pupils, whether on-site or off-site. I also propose to support through education support grants a programme to encourage local education authorities and schools to take positive action to tackle truancy. Both grants would be made available in 1990–91, and would be targeted on inner-city areas in the first instance.
I intend to require all local education authorities to introduce teacher appraisal schemes covering all their teachers within the next few years; and I shall expect these schemes to pay close attention to classroom management.
I am asking the school management task force to act on the committee's recommendation that management training programmes for headteachers and other senior 18W staff should give emphasis to the skills required to motivate and lead staff, and to manage institutional change.
The National Curriculum Council is already considering the place and content of personal and social education in the curriculum. I have asked the council to report progress to me by the end of March.
The committee's recommendations are addressed not only to Government, but to local education authorities, teachers, governing bodies, parents, the police and others. I look to all those groups to play their part in responding to the report. In particular, I hope that governing bodies and schools will look hard at what they can do to win parents' active support and partnership for their policies on discipline. I hope they will find opportunities to emphasise to parents the key role which they play in promoting good discipline in schools through the example they set and the control and guidance they provide in the home.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales is considering similar action in Wales on those matters falling within his responsibilities.
§ Mr. StrawTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science when the inquiry into violence in schools was established; when its report was received; and what was the cost of the inquiry.
§ Mr. Kenneth BakerI announced the establishment of the inquiry into discipline in schools on 18 March 1988, in reply to a question by my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) at column 687. The committee's report was received on 31 January. The cost of the inquiry is approximately £70,000. This includes the cost of the survey commissioned by the committee from Sheffield university but excludes the costs of publishing and distributing the committee's report.