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Education and Inspections Bill

The noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, rightly said that it may be good practice for schools to forbid pupils to leave during lunch hours or breaks. Many schools do that already and it is often regarded as good practice. The Bill gives head teachers the power to impose such restrictions. It is clear that these powers are covered by Clause 82. We do not want to specify lunch hours and other breaks in particular because, if we specified one area, the question would arise about why the Bill did not list all the measures that a head could determine, such as wearing school uniform and not running in corridors. One could give an exhaustive list of behaviour which it might be thought appropriate to put in the Bill. We acceptthat the restriction the noble Baroness talked aboutis important, and it is emphatically covered byClause 82. On Amendment No. 246, we should stress that Clause 96 does not prevent excluded pupils from having a break during the day. But we want to ensure that it prevents such breaks being taken in a public place, subject always to the defence of reasonable justification. We want to ensure that parents, or those who are responsible for the welfare of children, take proper responsibility for them in the first five days of an exclusion and that they are not simply roaming the streets in an unacceptable way. However, the noble Baroness’s amendment has caused my lawyers a slight flurry—if I may put it that way. Clause 96(3) states: "““If the excluded pupil is present in a public place at any time during school hours on a school day””." The lawyers are not quite clear whether the definition of school hours in subsection (3) would include lunch time, if for example a school’s normal policy was to allow pupils to be in a public place during lunch time. There is much confabulation going on among the lawyers. I may need to bring forward an amendment on Report, but I am not clear about that now. Amendment No. 239 probes the issue of school prefects and pupils with responsibility in a school. We are clear that pupils should not have those disciplinary powers under the meaning of the Bill. We took advice on the role of prefects from our stakeholder group on behaviour and attendance, on which all the professional associations were represented. Their conclusion, and ours, was that it would be wrong to give such statutory powers to pupils. That said, this amendment is unnecessary because only members of staff can impose disciplinary penalties under the Bill. It is clear that throughout Chapter 1 of Part 7 the word ““pupil”” is used in contrast to ““member of staff””. It is therefore very unlikely that any court would interpret the legislation in a way that made a pupil a member of staff. For further clarification, I say that firmly on the record. To reinforce that, we also intend our guidance on behaviour policies to make clear that head teachers cannot authorise pupils to impose sanctions. Turning to Amendment No. 221, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, Clause 82(5) enables a head to regulate the behaviour of pupils when they are out of school and not supervised by school staff, but, crucially, only to such an extent as is reasonable. We believe that the test of reasonableness, which was supported by the stakeholder group on behaviour and attendance, is adequate to govern this provision. Her amendment seeks to specify particular circumstances where this might be appropriate. We obviously agree with the two that she specified—journeys to and from school, and work placements—but we believe that these are clearly encompassed by the clause. Specifying some rather than other out-of-school contexts in which it would be desirable for head teachers to seek to regulate might imply that other circumstances are not so reasonable to monitor. Although we accept the two cases that the noble Baroness raised, we do not believe that it is right to specify particular circumstances. To assist heads in drawing up their behaviour policies, we will provide guidance, which will encompass examples of what might be considered reasonable. It will include the two examples that the noble Baroness raised but we do not wish, for the reasons that I have given, to specify that in the Bill. Amendment No. 222B seeks to restrict the power to impose disciplinary penalties to staff who have been specifically authorised to exercise that power by the head teacher. That is appropriate for parent volunteers and other unpaid staff for the reasons that the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, gave. Clause 84(4)(b) provides for that. There are separate arrangements in respect of CRB checks, which we debated at length in the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill that regulates the circumstances in which checks need to be undertaken. The noble Baronesses will remember the lengthy discussions that we had about the definition of the word ““frequent”” in respect of frequent supervision of pupils, which governs that point. We do not believe that it is right for paid staff to be subject to restrictions on their power to impose discipline, which Amendment No. 222B would allow. Every paid member of staff whose job involves supervising pupils needs the power to discipline them. The power to discipline is meaningless without the power to impose disciplinary penalties. Every paid member of staff whose job involves supervising pupils should get this power by virtue of their job. Of course, they are expected to be properly trained and supervised in their performance of that job. Clause 84 provides for that. On Amendments Nos. 222C and 222D, we obviously agree with the sentiment that the enforcement of penalties should promote the well-being of children, but the amendment does not seem desirable. Schools have a well established duty of care towards their pupils, which means taking the same kind of care as a reasonably prudent parent would provide. A reasonably prudent parent would of course protect a child’s well-being. Surely, the key point is that all disciplinary penalties—from the mildest through to permanent exclusion—have to strike a balance between the interests of the individual child and those of the school community as a whole. Of course, penalties should signal to the individual child that a particular behaviour is unacceptable. We hope that he or she will learn from that. Penalties should also protect the rest of the school community by deterring children from repeating such behaviour and signal to other pupils that the behaviour is unacceptable. This means that it is not always possible to argue that a particular penalty promotes the well-being of the pupil on whom it is imposed. For that reason, we do not think that it is sensible to add the additional requirement proposed. As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, Amendment No. 237A, which was moved at the instigation of the National Union of Teachers, seeks to provide that all confiscations are lawful unless proved otherwise. My honourable friend Jim Knight wrote at length to the noble Baroness’s colleague Sarah Teather with substantial chapter and verse on the legal position and why we have adopted the position that we have in the Bill. I could read out the whole letter or send it to her to ensure effective co-operation between her Front Bench and the Front Bench in the other place. If she has any queries on it, I would be more than happy to respond to them directly. We believe that the power we are taking is reasonable and meets the human rights concerns that she raised. Having read the letter carefully before this debate, I was wholly persuaded by it. On that basis, I hope that I can conclude.