NASUWT comments on secretary of state’s announcement on pupil behaviour
Commenting on the announcement by the Secretary of State Michael Gove that the DfE is to issue new guidance to schools to give teachers confidence to be tougher on bad behaviour by pupils, Chris Keates, General Secretary of the NASUWT, the largest teachers’ union, said:
“Given the appalling track record of this Coalition Government in supporting teachers, the Secretary of State’s claims that he wants to give teachers confidence to tackle pupil indiscipline will have a hollow ring in classrooms across the country.
“The almost daily denigration of teachers’ professionalism and competence by Coalition ministers and their supporters has undermined teachers’ confidence.
“Teachers are increasingly led and managed, not by lead practitioners who understand the day to day realities of teaching, but by those whose only regular contact with the classroom is to drop in on lessons to criticise the teacher and lay the blame for poor pupil behaviour on the teacher rather than the pupil.
“Vital external specialist support that teachers need when behaviour problems begin to emerge has been reduced and removed by the Coalition’s savage cuts to local authority budgets.
“School to school professional support and co-operation to secure effective behaviour strategies has been removed by the Coalition’s abolition of school behaviour and attendance partnerships and by increasing competition between schools through the marketisation and fragmentation of the education system.
“It is addressing these issues which will give teachers confidence, not cheap attempts at headline grabbing with one eye on the General Election.”
ENDS
Lena Davies
Press and Media Officer
NASUWT
0121 457 6250 / 07867 392 746
lena.davies@mail.nasuwt.org.uk
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