Discipline in Schools
Good morning. Our first item of business is the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party debate on motion S1M-792, in the name of Mr Brian Monteith, on discipline in schools and amendments to that motion.
It is now a year since we were elected and I am sure that most members accept that, although the public continue to support the Parliament, they are less enthusiastic about its overall performance.
This is the first Scottish Parliament for nearly 300 years. As we all go through a steep learning curve, some errors of judgment should be expected. One such error is raising public expectations too high. Instilling a belief that we can legislate away our problems is a misunderstanding that we must continue to suppress.
For example, we have an education bill that purports to legislate for better standards in schools. However, if we are honest with ourselves, we must acknowledge that the bill itself cannot deliver higher standards; it is the teaching profession that must achieve those standards for us—the parents—and, more important, for our children. We should look to the McCrone committee, not the Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Bill, to raise the morale of the teaching profession. Furthermore, we must tackle the rising tide of indiscipline in our schools.
Teachers are leaving the profession—some say in droves. Although it is right that the bill should tackle incompetent teachers, Carol Fox of the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers has said:
"Never mind disciplinary procedures for incompetent teachers—what about statutory disciplinary procedures for pupils backed up by referrals to the Children's panel system or courts?"
And Carol Fox was previously a social worker.
I do not know of any head teachers who use exclusions lightly—and the figures bear that impression out. In 1996-97 and 1997-98, before the Government introduced its target reduction of 30 per cent by 2003, exclusions accounted for only 0.57 and 0.53 of the school population in Edinburgh. It is our contention that introducing target reductions for exclusions—or what, in my day, were called expulsions—will result in more violence against teachers and pupils and greater disruption of pupils, with a consequent lowering of morale for the teaching profession, which can only affect standards.
If we examine the most recent available statistics—for 1998-99—we find that a total of 187 working days were lost by teachers as a result of violence in classrooms. Such violence includes not only physical violence, but verbal abuse, which can often be highly threatening. There were 1,388 recorded incidents against teachers and 517 against ancillary workers such as dinner ladies and jannies. However, not everyone is prepared to believe even the Government's statistics, and it is not yet possible to compare figures over the years. That said, the anecdotal evidence suggests that violence is rising.
What do some of the experts say? Glasgow teacher Hugh Reilly, a columnist and teacher known to many, has said:
"It will become more difficult to exclude them if they misbehave. When inevitably exam results decline, the finger of blame will deservedly point to those responsible, i.e. the teachers."
What can we expect from the Government? Hugh Reilly continues:
"Sam Galbraith prattles on about the child being at the centre of everything and I have lived through the ‘every child is special' guff dropped on me from high."
Yet
"the herd of decent kids who dominate every school, even the so-called sink schools, are treated as nonentities."
He was appealing for more concern to be shown for pupils who behave.
Last year, in a report to the City of Edinburgh Council, the education director said:
"Circular 2/98 has prompted a change in practice in exclusion from school, moving away from the ability to use informal exclusions. It is expected, therefore, with the loss of the informal exclusions as an available sanction, that there will, inevitably, be an increase in the numbers of formal exclusions from session 1998/99."
Why are exclusions used? As I have said, they are used sparingly. This example was given at a recent conference.
"A boy was found trying to set light to a Chemistry bench with a cigarette lighter. When challenged he threatened to burn the teacher and became verbally abusive. After school on the same day the boy hung around with a group of friends and made rude and obscene gestures to the teacher. These matters were reported and the boy was eventually excluded."
Note the "eventually".
"However management were immediately concerned to work out strategies to enable this boy to return to school. They were less concerned about the protests of the teacher who was made to feel neurotic and inadequate. Finally following NASUWT intervention agreement was reached that this child would not return to that chemistry class. But the problem has not been solved. It has merely been moved around and another teacher may face more serious harm next time."
In dealing with the issue, the focus was on the pupil and the concern was the exclusion statistics. What about the teacher? What about the other pupils? What about the message sent to the whole school about behaviour and punishment?
It is not as if the Government is not trying. It is, for instance, spending lots of money, because we know that it is resources that really make a difference—don't we? The Government has spent an amazing £95 million. Peter Peacock may not recognise that figure, because it is probably slightly bigger than his brief will tell him, so let me explain.
In a press release in January 1999, Helen Liddell announced £23 million to combat exclusion. Not content with that—after all, an election was coming up—she announced, in February 1999, £26 million to combat exclusion. The election being over, in September 1999 Sam Galbraith announced £23 million to combat exclusion—the press release headline said the money was "additional". In February this year, Peter Peacock, the minister present today, repeated the announcement of £23 million.
That is an example of well-meaning but misguided promotion of the same money time and again. We welcome investment in trying to provide alternatives, but it is clear that the culture is more important and must change. Spending is not enough; how it is spent is just as important.
Throughout the country, there are schools—I have seen them and people have written to me about them—that have closed-circuit television that either does not work or is not supported by video facilities to record the actions of pupils as they come back to the school to wreak their revenge on buildings or staff. Mobile phones are also causing problems of indiscipline. Pupils are using them to summon their parents to the school to sort out teachers who have the audacity to attempt to correct their misbehaviour.
Nonsense.
It is not nonsense. A teacher in Edinburgh gave me an example of a teacher who tried to correct the behaviour of a pupil who was pushing children and staff in a corridor. The pupil then used his mobile phone to report the incident to his parent, who came and barricaded himself in the office with the head teacher. The police had to be called. That is real, not make believe.
Teachers need to know that they have the full support of their peers and management when dealing with indiscipline. Head teachers need to know that they have the authority to act and to make a judgment about what is correct for the undisciplined pupil and for other pupils whose studies are being disrupted.
The member has given us a number of anecdotes about the difficulties with indiscipline that teachers may face in the classroom. Can he give us any examples of what he would do, save exclude the child from school?
I am coming to that.
Not just parents, but teachers and union officials say that head teachers must have the authority to act. Children, too, are concerned about discipline in schools and regularly cite it as one of the most important issues they face, whether in the context of bullying or of classroom disruption.
So what can be done to reduce the growth in violence and indiscipline? I suggest that Mr Barrie listen, as this was the point of his intervention. Teachers tell me that they support small class sizes. That would certainly help with crowd control. This party has supported a reduction in class sizes. When we were in government, class sizes were reduced and we support the current Government's moves to continue that.
The Government's social inclusion policy will, unfortunately, give kids equal opportunity—opportunity to disrupt lessons. Instead, we should look to reduce the number of exclusions by changing the culture of behaviour in schools. We should look to give head teachers the freedom to decide what is in the best interests of each pupil and of their fellow pupils in their school's community, on a case-by-case basis. That is the real child-centred approach. Plucking arbitrary target figures out of the air is prescriptive, self-defeating and damaging.
Special units in schools can be an alternative—and useful—but they are not a panacea. They should not be more plush than the classrooms they replace and they should not become a goal to be aimed for—as viewed from their peer group—by children with a corrosive culture.
Punishment does not need to be severe, but it must follow bad behaviour and reward good behaviour. There should be no delay; delays lessen the impact on the pupils concerned and their classmates. Without such an approach, the victims are the hard-working pupils whose schooling is damaged, the teachers whose careers are often wrecked and the perpetrators who, learning nothing but contempt for authority, often continue their amoral behaviour in adult society.
As a parent, I want my two boys to be taught in a safe, happy environment by a safe, happy teacher. As a politician, I want teachers, and the dedicated, hard-working vast majority of pupils to know that we will protect and help them.
Some people may have expected me to ask for the belt to be brought back. I am sorry to disappoint them—I do not support that policy. There is a great deal of common ground in the amendments to my motion, but the one issue that we want to point to is target setting for exclusion. Let us remove those iniquitous targets and give teachers and head teachers the authority to act for the benefit of the school community and, in the long run, for the individuals who need help to mend their ways.
I move,
That the Parliament believes that improved discipline in Scottish schools would contribute greatly to improved educational standards and would improve teacher morale; further believes that the introduction of targets to reduce the number of pupil exclusions can have a negative impact on discipline; recognises that a more flexible approach is required that puts faith in the judgement of head teachers to resolve individual cases on their merits, and calls upon the Scottish Executive to abandon its agenda of target setting for numbers of school exclusions in favour of an approach based on the needs of individual children, their peers and teachers backed up by appropriate resources to provide the diversity of educational provision and sanctions against bad behaviour that are required to improve discipline.
I am not quite sure where to start after listening to that.
Good.
Latterly, Brian Monteith said something that I could agree with: that he wants kids to be educated in a safe, happy environment with safe, happy teachers. I agree with that entirely.
In leading up to that point, Brian Monteith painted a picture of Scottish schools as if they were in a state of continuous war—that every school is a war zone, with riots going on. I will need to check the Official Report for this, but he said that we are, unfortunately, trying to give children equal opportunities. That is a most extraordinary statement to come from anybody, when giving equal opportunities and enhancing life chances is precisely what we are trying to do.
I think that the minister is taking my point out of context. If he reads the Official Report he will see that my point was about the equal opportunity to disrupt schools—it was not the way he put it.
That is not the way it came across either. Mr Monteith's speech was really a litany of populist prejudice, masquerading as a policy speech from the Conservatives.
I wanted to have a reasoned debate about this serious, complex issue for Scottish children and Scottish education. I do not underestimate the difficulties that some teachers face at some schools at some times each day, at some times each term and at some times each year. Equally, I believe that we are beginning to address those problems seriously.
Unlike the Tories, with their 18 disastrous years of rule for Scottish education, we want to address fundamentally what alienates young people from the school system and the support schools and families require to keep as many young people as possible inside the school system, which will increase their life chances. We want never to write off any child, despite what Brian Monteith says to belittle that aspect of our approach.
Throughout the life of this Parliament, the Executive has been very active in promoting good attendance and discipline in the classroom and in helping to alleviate problems that would otherwise act against us. That is why we attach high priority to a sustained and what I believe will have to be a long-term approach to addressing the current problem and to tackling the causes of young people's alienation. That is why we are investing in early intervention.
We are trying to improve literacy skills and increase young people's confidence in the classroom—often, the process of alienation that leads to disruption in the class begins when the young person fails to gain the required literacy skills. We are trying to increase the number of classroom assistants. I am glad that Brian Monteith welcomed that.
We want to give more support in the classroom in the earliest years to ensure that children are given a proper start and do not fall out of the system. We are trying to identify and supply support for dyslexia earlier. We are investing heavily in the sure start Scotland initiative, which tries to identify children below the school age in families that face difficulties, to ensure that those children can be given the support to develop to a point at which they can make the most of their learning opportunities when they go to school.
We are improving pre-school and nursery education to ease the path into school to make learning more meaningful and productive for a range of people. We are promoting homework support, which tries to ensure that support is available for children whose family support networks are not as strong as they should be. We are promoting before-school clubs and after-school clubs as a way of encouraging young people to be part of the school system.
Those and many other initiatives attempt to identify early those who may be beginning to start the process of alienation which can lead to disruption. Since 1998, all our schools have had locally agreed targets for attendance backed up by practical support materials and guidance to help them evaluate and develop their own practices.
The Executive is supporting measures such as out-of-school learning and education for work, which are designed to stimulate pupils' interest and will to learn. We are investing heavily in the new community schools programme, which focuses on the integration of services that provide support for children and their families and can help to resolve problems and difficulties in the home that might lead to lack of attendance and disruption in the classroom.
New community schools also serve as a launching ground for personal learning plans, a key feature of which is the involvement of pupils in drawing up their own programme of learning. The initiative will engage the pupil positively and allow them to take responsibility for their learning as they get older.
Bullying is a regrettable aspect of school life that can contribute to discipline problems. We are helping schools to reduce bullying through the anti-bullying network, which has a good reputation and makes available a range of anti-bullying materials to schools, pupils, teachers and parents.
The minister referred to 18 disastrous Tory years. Does he accept that it was Michael Forsyth, as Scottish Office minister with responsibility for education, who made the first moves to institute anti-bullying programmes?
A spark of light in a long and gloomy period is not a cause for rejoicing. The gloomy aspects of the Tories' time in office are what people remember.
The anti-bullying network also provides in-school training and a consultancy service to support individual schools in developing effective strategies and enables teachers to recognise and deal with bullying problems. We are also helping ChildLine to maintain its bullying helpline, which provides a valuable support service to young people who are suffering at the hands of bullies.
Exclusion from school, which Brian Monteith focused on, is an important issue that arouses strong feelings. We are conscious of the frustration that teachers sometimes feel in the classroom when, for example, they have repeatedly to respond to disruptive behaviour from a minority of pupils—I stress that the problem is with only a minority of pupils. Exclusion will often seem to be the answer to these problems. We believe that exclusion from school is an important sanction that ought to be available to local authorities but that it should be used only as a last resort in response to serious breaches of discipline or criminal behaviour. Being excluded from school means missing out on learning and once pupils miss time it can be difficult to catch up and the process of alienation, which sees pupils being forced to the margins of the school system, can begin. Exclusion can mean that a pupil becomes disengaged not only from school, but from society—something that causes problems for everyone in the community.
We realise that there is a need for a multi-agency approach and to engage with other agencies in the community to address that problem. It is wrong of Brian Monteith to suggest that the exclusion policy and the targets that we are setting are some kind of imposition and that head teachers will have no scope to act in the school. Head teachers have absolute discretion to act in the school and to make the decisions that they feel are necessary. I have seen a huge improvement in the methods that head teachers employ to manage indiscipline.
Unashamedly, we have set targets for the reduction of exclusion. We believe that it is only right for an Administration that takes seriously the need to reduce exclusion—for the reasons that I have begun to set out—to set targets for itself so that it can measure whether it is achieving those targets and heading in the right direction. It would be wrong for us to take a hands-off approach to the issue.
Many problems in society stem from some of the factors that I have mentioned. By tackling those factors in schools, in a positive and constructive environment, we hope to reduce exclusions and disruption in schools and the longer-term social problems that emanate from exclusions from schools. I shall pick up other points later in the debate.
I move amendment S1M-792.2, to leave out from "believes" to end and insert:
", whilst acknowledging the problem of maintaining discipline in schools, supports the Executive's continuing work to promote good discipline in schools; endorses the Executive's commitment to training and support for teachers in maintaining good discipline in the classroom; welcomes the provision of resources from the Excellence Fund to identify viable alternatives to exclusion from school and to integrate the support services for children and their families within the school setting, and welcomes the Executive's moves to encourage the greater involvement of parents in their children's education."
In view of the number of members who want to speak in both debates, there will be a four-minute limit on speeches in the open debate to enable everyone to speak.
The Tory motion is another example of the way in which the Tories are, only now, addressing an issue that they failed to do anything at all about during 18 long years in government. I say to Brian Monteith that invoking the memory of Michael Forsyth in this new Parliament is a sign of desperation indeed.
What we have just heard from Peter Peacock, the Deputy Minister for Children and Education, shows a degree of complacency over a problem that exists in our schools. The problem of indiscipline may or may not be growing: it is difficult to tell whether it is worse now than it was a few years ago. It does not help anybody to scaremonger about such matters, as Brian Monteith did for 10 minutes this morning. It is clear, however, from the views of teachers and others who work in education, that the problem of indiscipline in schools is becoming much more difficult to deal with.
Indiscipline comes in many forms. One of the problems with Brian Monteith's speech was that, in true tabloid form, he focused on only the high-profile cases. There are, nevertheless, serious cases of indiscipline in schools. The results of a survey that was published earlier this year revealed that, in 1998-99, nearly 2,000 violent attacks on teachers and school staff took place. That survey should not be ignored by any member of this Parliament. The most horrifying statistic from the survey was the fact that 40 per cent of those attacks were committed by pupils in primary schools—a fact on which we should all reflect.
It is appropriate for us to ensure that the strongest possible message is sent to young people that violence in schools will simply not be tolerated and that any pupil who commits violent acts will be dealt with severely and can—and should—expect to be excluded from school. Zero tolerance of violence in our classrooms is the message that this Parliament should send out loudly and clearly.
There must also be an effective strategy to deal with the more endemic problem of minor, but persistent, misbehaviour that disrupts classrooms, takes up the time of teachers and saps their energy, burdens head teachers and damages the educational experience for all children. That type of behaviour is notoriously difficult to deal with. Much good work is under way, and I acknowledge that. The promoting positive discipline initiative, which convinces young people that good behaviour is ultimately more rewarding than bad behaviour, is the right approach. However, such an approach will not work in all cases. Much more needs to be done to tackle the causes of disruption and to enable teachers to deal with it.
It is important to say that the onus should not be on teachers alone. Teachers are not social workers, psychologists or health workers; nor should they be expected to do the job of parents. Parents must be expected to accept responsibility for the behaviour of their children. We must also recognise that children who are disruptive—especially those who cause serious disruption—have real social and emotional problems. It is right to say that, in such cases, exclusion should be the last resort and that those children deserve support to stay in mainstream education. However, it is not enough simply to say that, nor is it enough simply to set targets for reducing exclusions and to expect the education system to cope. Targets alone will not improve discipline—many teachers feel that the statistical targets are part of the problem, rather than part of the solution.
Increasingly, mainstream schools must deal with children with emotional, social and behavioural problems without any extra resources, in a climate where teachers feel that they are being asked to perform impossible tasks that are, essentially, conflicting. Inclusion is right, but it is not always easy and it does not come cheap. If we are to cut exclusions without causing disruption in our schools, there must be more on-site specialist provision—more learning and behavioural support teachers and one-to-one support for children with the most severe difficulties.
Peter Peacock will say that the Government is spending more money on all those services, but the picture on the ground is different. Rather than increasing provision, local authorities are being forced to cut those services. Specific grants from the education budget for social work services are projected to fall from £4.2 million in 1998-99 to £2.3 million in 2001-02. Much more needs to be done. We must train teachers properly to deal with disruptive pupils and with the problems that they cause. Class sizes must be cut—not just in the early years, but across the board. That is one of the most important steps that can be taken to create the right environment for the promotion of good behaviour.
An interesting research study carried out by Moray House Institute of Education a couple of years ago showed that 73 per cent of primary school teachers and 85 per cent of secondary school teachers cited the reduction of class sizes as the priority in improving school discipline.
An effective discipline policy must give head teachers the right to exclude where such action is absolutely necessary. Apart from anything else, there must be the threat of exclusion as a deterrent. There comes a point where the behaviour of an individual is so bad that not to remove them would deny the rights of the majority. Head teachers must be allowed to exercise their judgment.
When exclusion is the only answer, we must ensure that it is used constructively—as part of the solution to the problem of indiscipline, not just as a means of punishment. We must not export the problem to the streets. I say to Peter Peacock that exclusion must not lead to children missing out on learning. We need more off-site specialist provision. There are local authorities in Scotland that have no off-site provision for children who have been excluded from school. That cannot be allowed to continue.
This issue is complex—more complex than Brian Monteith recognised in his speech this morning. Indiscipline in schools cannot be dealt with by soundbites or by a glib, populist approach. Equally, the problem cannot be dealt with by the Government's approach of simply imposing targets, which it expects other people to meet. It is time for a more complex and sophisticated solution that recognises that this problem must be dealt with urgently.
I move amendment S1M-792.1, to leave out from "improved discipline" to end and insert:
"indiscipline in Scottish schools undermines efforts to improve educational standards for all children and damages teacher morale; believes that whilst exclusion of pupils from schools should always be a last resort, headteachers' professional judgement must not be unduly restricted by the imposition of statistical targets for reducing exclusions; and calls upon the Scottish Executive to implement a national strategy for improving school discipline which includes an emphasis on the role of parents, improved teacher training, enhanced specialist provision in schools, increased numbers of learning and behavioural support teachers, a reduction in class sizes, and a constructive use of exclusions."
I, too, listened with great interest to Brian Monteith's speech—I hope that he is not leaving the chamber. We heard some colourful, anecdotal illustrations from him, and I share Nicola Sturgeon's view. His speech was a bit too populist for me. However, it gave away Brian's view: he is locked in a mindset of the past. I will illustrate that with a small tale.
When I was a pupil at Tain Royal Academy, we had a bad boy who not only filled a fire extinguisher with weedkiller and sugar in an attempt to blow up the school—that was his ultimate act—but I remember that he put sugar in the rector's petrol tank. That lad was expelled. As it would not be fair to record his name, I will not say it, but I can assure the minister that it was not me. I met that fellow just the other day in the street and, pointing to something in the newspaper, I said, "Look at that." However, I did not get through to him and suddenly remembered that he could not read; he never could. Of course he could not read. He was a casualty of the bad old system.
I hope that all members would accept that exclusion is not at all desirable, and I have some statistics that will back up that view. A recent MORI poll in England indicated that 72 per cent of children excluded from school had offended in the previous year, compared with only 28 per cent of those who attended school regularly. A report by the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, "Learning the Lessons", includes research findings from the Metropolitan police and estimates that 40 per cent of all robberies, 25 per cent of burglaries and 20 per cent of thefts in London are committed during school hours by children aged between 10 and 16. I put it to the chamber that exclusion leads to a form of ghettoisation; it is a means by which one can send children into outer darkness and not worry about them. Brian Monteith has, quite rightly, owned up to saying that the day of the taws is over, and so it is. We must move away from the mindset of the past and move towards a new way of doing things.
Peter Peacock has touched on the resources being made available to teachers. I hear what Nicola Sturgeon says about social work, but if she were to go to an authority such as the one that runs my old school, Highland, she would discover that councils are up front about saying that there is new money in education and it is very welcome. Their only concern is about whether funding will continue when the current period is over. I hope that it will.
Will Mr Stone give way?
I will not give way. I do not have much time left.
The underlying trends are there. The notion of good pupil pressure can be made to work. That is closely linked to what the minister said about community schools. I would like the community schools scheme to be extended, perhaps even into primaries, as I am sure that it is the way forward.
One thing that interested me about what Brian Monteith did not say was that he did not mention the role of parents. The minister's amendment mentions
"the greater involvement of parents in their children's education."
That is something that Nicola Sturgeon also touched on, and it is absolutely fundamental. It is about community schools, it is about good pupil pressure and it is about involving parents. Those three new directions are radically different from the old mindset that led to ghettoisation and, ultimately, led to an old classmate of mine, now in his mid-40s, not being able to read. I urge members to support the minister's amendment.
It is important to start a debate such as this by stressing the points upon which we are all agreed. I hope that we all agree that teachers should be able to teach without fear of abuse, physical or verbal, from pupils or from their families. We must recognise that cases such as those outlined by Brian Monteith occur and have to be dealt with. We also agree that, if there is indiscipline in a class, it will be more difficult for the teachers to teach and for the pupils to learn. Again, that is an issue that we must address. However, I regret the way in which the motion has been worded, because it concentrates on exclusions. A more positive approach to the whole discipline issue would have been more effective.
Many schools are now involved in promoting positive discipline, and there are various theories as to how to do that. The most commonly used package in Scottish schools is "Turn Your School Around". It is a behavioural management package that can be used in primary and secondary schools. It has eight components. I will not list them all, but the best known are the concepts of circle time and golden rules. Such discipline packages involve pupils in establishing the rules. They also give teachers the opportunity to work with their pupils to establish a relationship and to build up their confidence.
All the theories about positive discipline show that the teacher needs to be assertive. Lee Canter, one of the theorists, said that the assertive teacher is one who
"clearly, confidently and consistently states expectations to pupils and is prepared to back these words up with actions".
The behaviour of the teacher is therefore a crucial element in the discipline procedure.
Those packages also involve parents, and Jamie Stone stressed the importance of involving parents. It should be fairly obvious to all of us that parents and teachers working together will have a more positive effect on pupils. However, the reverse situation, where the relationship between parent and teacher has broken down, will always be open to difficulties. We must remember that parents have their own experiences of schools. Some parents will have been in situations that have led to them now feeling no respect whatsoever either for the school or for the education process. That attitude is passed on to their children and it can be difficult to re-establish a relationship. However, excluding a child will serve only to perpetuate that line of broken relationships without dealing with the problem.
I thank the convener of the Education, Culture and Sport Committee for giving way. Mary Mulligan said much that I agree with, as I agree with much of what the previous speakers said. For the avoidance of doubt, does she accept that the primary point that is addressed in our motion is the target setting of exclusions? We are not saying that exclusions are right; we are decrying the fact that there are targets to reduce exclusions, which puts pressure on head teachers and takes away their ability to make independent judgments.
The aim of setting targets to reduce exclusions is to ensure that more children are included within the education process and receive a positive experience. We welcome that. I am concerned about the view that excluding pupils shows how tough we are. The more difficult option is to keep the pupils in school and work to manage their behaviour.
Brian Monteith tried to rescue his motion and his speech by being positive towards the end of his speech, but exclusions are only a small part of the disciplinary process. Exclusion only achieves what Brian Monteith criticised: it just moves the problem around. What do excluded children do? They are more likely to be left with time on their hands, which is time to cause more trouble.
Less serious discipline problems do not require exclusion, but they may be experienced more frequently by teachers, and they are just as demoralising. That is why the positive teaching measures that Peter Peacock outlined are so important. The motion has raised an important issue of discipline in our schools. I hope that the debate will contribute in a more positive way than the motion has set out to do.
I would like to talk about disruptive behaviour in the classroom, and also the increase in stress-related absence among teachers throughout Scotland. The minister painted a rosy picture, and Nicola Sturgeon was right to say that he was complacent. Since I have been elected I have spoken to many classroom teachers and head teachers throughout the north-east of Scotland, and I can tell the minister that morale in many schools—not every school—is at rock bottom. Members would not believe some of the horror stories that teachers tell.
It is clear that disruptive behaviour is one of the factors behind the increase in stress-related absence, which is a topic that I have mentioned before in Parliament. I was interested to find out some statistics recently from Aberdeenshire Council. Because of local government cuts, the council was looking for teachers to apply for voluntary severance. I thought that I would find out how many teachers applied for it, because it would give an indication of teachers' morale in the area.
Aberdeenshire Council's director of education wrote to me on 25 April. I can tell the minister that 275 teachers called the council to inquire about voluntary severance, which means that 12 per cent of teachers want out of their jobs. The director of education also told me that at that time, 210 staff were off ill. That is between 10 per cent and 11 per cent of the work force. The minister should not paint too rosy a picture. He should find out the national figures for Scotland, because they would indicate the morale of teachers.
Dundee City Council is another of the few councils that keeps statistics on stress-related absence among teachers. The council wrote to me and said that between 1 August and the end of December last year 2,093 days were lost through stress in the city of Dundee. If that figure is extrapolated, 5,000 days per year are lost in the city due to stress—nearly five days per teacher. Those are appalling statistics.
Violence in the classroom is one of the reasons why morale is low, and why so many teachers are taking time off due to stress, but it is not the only factor. Having heard some of the stories, which I shall tell the minister, of what is happening in the north-east of Scotland, I find it no wonder that morale is low.
We are talking about exclusion. I know of a couple of cases in Aberdeenshire. In one, a child assaulted his fellow classmates. An auxiliary teacher was brought in to help the classroom teacher to cope, and the child assaulted the auxiliary teacher. That teacher was transferred to another primary school because the parents refused to acknowledge that there was a problem, and they refused to let their child see a psychologist. There was nothing that the school could do about that, apart from transferring the child to another school. The child went to another school and assaulted his fellow pupils there. The classroom teacher in that school had to take early retirement through stress because of that situation.
There are many such examples from north-east Scotland. Another child is at his third primary school because his parents refused to acknowledge that their child has a problem. They blame the schools for all the hassle in the classroom. Once again, the teachers can do nothing because their hands are tied. I hope that the minister will look into those examples following today's debate.
We all know that education suffers as a result of destructive behaviour in the classroom. The five to 14 curriculum suffers and teachers cannot meet their targets because they are spending so much time dealing with destructive behaviour in the classroom. A child can assault staff, be a menace in the playground and disrupt the education of the other kids in their class, but the options that are available to staff to deal with such problems are extremely limited. A child might also assault the teacher. I know of one case in which the child was excluded for five days. The child is back at school and the teacher is now terrified. There is nothing that the school can do in the situation.
We need more resources to provide alternatives-to-exclusion units on site at schools. It is fair enough not to want to exclude children, but there must be resources for alternatives. In Aberdeenshire, local government cuts mean that the council has to get rid of teachers and there is a lack of units that provide alternatives to exclusion.
Many factors other than destructive behaviour cause stress-related absence among teachers. I ask the minister to respond positively to the points that are being made in the debate. I also suggest that he visits north-east Scotland. He should get in touch with teachers and head teachers and hear what they have to say.
I will declare an interest, in that I was a teacher for 25 years and I remain a member of the Scottish Secondary Teachers Association.
The past year since I left the classroom has been the fastest and most stress-free of my working life. Allowing for the fact that it has been a year since I was a teacher, I took the precaution yesterday—in case things had changed remarkably for the better—of checking facts before I dared to speak in the debate. The SSTA tells me that it has just completed a major survey of its membership and the results will be announced in the next few days. The survey was about discipline and it is the association's belief that discipline ranks first among the concerns of secondary teachers. It is even ahead of the perennial issue of pay and the recurring problem of curriculum change, which at the moment centres on higher still.
The survey generated a major—indeed, in the association's terms, overwhelming—response. The problem is not about the headline-grabbing incidents and the soundbites that were referred to earlier. Such incidents remain rare, fortunately, and in many cases there are sanctions available to deal with them. What is defeating and wearing and leads to the stress-related illnesses, absentee rates and the preoccupation among older teachers with securing early retirement is the persistence of relatively minor indiscipline. One can hardly imagine, if one has not faced or confronted it, how such indiscipline can be a problem. The problem is the relentless grind and the wear and tear of people who will not co-operate, people who are upset and people who are alienated from school or society.
Peter Peacock's speech was positive and contained much that I can identify with, but he seems to see the discipline problems in schools as being the result of alienation of the pupil from the school. In fact, very many of the problems come from outwith the schools and are nothing to do with the schools. The difficulties cannot all be resolved by dealing with parents because parents are often not available or do not have control over their children. Schools are being asked to deal with many wider social problems and teachers must develop coping strategies.
Most of the time teachers cope very well by trying to be lively and interesting and by being non-confrontational in dealing with children. Teachers cope by being persistent and patient and by deploying their personalities. I am sure that the chamber will have worked out by now why I was an excellent teacher. [Laughter.] However, the most skilful, tolerant and experienced teachers do not always cope. It is always likely that there will be situations that strike out of the blue because of something that happened in another classroom, something that happened yesterday evening or something that happened at the pupil's home.
Exclusion is part and parcel of school life. It includes the five-minute exclusion outside the door that a teacher gives someone to allow that person to calm down and to enable the teacher to rearrange the lesson after an incident has taken place. It also includes informal exclusion when a school sends someone home for a few days until a meeting can be set up with social workers, parents or whoever a teacher wants to talk to. Schools do not readily and quickly press the expulsion or the ultimate exclusion button. The number of recorded cases indicates that it is rarely used. When it is used, that is because the school is at the end of its tether with the pupil in question. No one seeks to exclude lightly.
We have to raise further the profile of discipline in schools. It should be a much greater component of in-service training and of Government guidance to schools and education authorities. It should feature much more prominently in the inspection process, because it is fundamental to the good management and the smooth day-to-day operation of a school. I was reassured by what the minister had to say this morning about the exclusion targets. There is concern in schools that the exclusion target that has been set is arbitrary. People want to know where the figure of 30 per cent comes from and what it will mean in practice.
Sometimes head teachers are seen as company men, who represent the education authority against the teachers instead of championing the teachers against the authority, whose interest is to keep as many children in school as possible. If we are empowering head teachers, people will be happy with that. If we are saying that head teachers have the right to exclude pupils for a period of days to calm down a situation and to bring people in, they will be happy with that too.
When discussing education in this chamber previously we talked about the structure of promoted posts in the context of a pay review. The structure of promoted posts is also extremely important in the context of discipline. Part of the process of managing people is being able to refer someone on to a figure of greater authority—like you, Presiding Officer—who knows that there are lines that must not be crossed.
You are close to one now.
If we flatten the structure of promoted posts in secondary schools, there is a danger that we will make the human and personality difficulties in schools more difficult to contain. We might end up with more exclusions as a result, as then all we would have left is the nuclear button.
The implications of the Tory motion and the tone of Brian Monteith's contribution do nothing to advance what is a complicated and diverse issue. Apparently, if the Scottish Executive did not have targets on school exclusions, head teachers would not have greater flexibility to exclude disruptive students, but that is exactly what head teachers have at the moment.
Previous speakers have been quite right to say that indiscipline among a minority of pupils in our secondary schools and some of our primary schools is an increasing problem—as it is, as Murray Tosh indicated, in society as a whole. However, it is important to bear in mind that different education authorities, and different schools within those education authorities, sometimes have quite different policies on school exclusions. The exclusion rates in high schools even in the same education authority can vary quite markedly. High exclusion rates do not equal good schools, and low exclusion rates do not equal poor schools. Given that there is no such correlation, we have to consider whether higher or lower rates of exclusion are the result of the ethos in particular schools.
As Peter Peacock and others have already said, exclusions should be regarded as the last resort and as a measure to deal with very serious breaches of school discipline or regulations. We need to consider what else can be done in schools to support pupils with social, behavioural or learning difficulties. We have already heard about behaviour support units in schools, greater use of learning support services in schools and the possibility of campus units. It is also important that schools have stronger links with the outside agencies with which they have day-to-day contact: the psychological services, community education and, dare I say it, social work.
I am glad that Brian Monteith does not wish to bring back corporal punishment. That is in marked contrast to his colleague Lyndsay McIntosh, who in the debate of 24 February on physical chastisement seemed to indicate that we should be considering that. It was certainly Shuggie the security man's solution in The Scotsman today.
Mr Monteith said that we should punish bad behaviour and reward good behaviour. No one would take issue with that. However, he has to realise that, when we exclude some pupils, we reward bad behaviour, because exclusion is exactly what they wanted. The challenge that faces all of us, and educationists in particular, is to find a way of holding on to those disenchanted pupils in S3 and S4. We should not reward them by sending them on the merry-go-round, which is what often happens when pupils are excluded. They move round from school A to school B to school C, usually ending up in a residential educational establishment.
Does the member feel that maintaining the school-leaving age at 16 is a contributory factor to the problem that he has been speaking about? Would he support a change in the leaving age, which might allow pupils to go to further education colleges earlier and therefore stay within the education system, or might allow them to find education through work with an employer that provided education? That would keep them in education, but away from the school that they may have rejected.
Many people have tried to promote that idea. The school-leaving age is 16; for a large number of pupils—especially those whose birthdays fall in the latter half of the year and who cannot officially leave school until December but who intend to leave school as soon as they are 16—we often consider joint placements with FE colleges or some other arrangement to fill those last six months. Taking a child-centred or an individual approach, which Mr Monteith seemed to rubbish, is exactly the way to proceed.
As I said, excluding a pupil from school is often seen as rewarding bad behaviour. We must understand what we are doing when we exclude a kid. We are probably reducing their life chances considerably. We had a debate on looked-after children earlier this year, in which we talked about the lack of good outcomes for many young people in the looked-after system. Many young people who find themselves excluded from school have poor outcomes in later life. I remember being told by an educational psychologist during my days in social work that every time a child moves between schools, he or she can lose up to six months of education. If the child is excluded from two or three schools, a considerable amount of learning opportunity is lost.
My time has run out. I look forward to listening to other people's contribution.
This has been a debate of contrasts. The strongest contrast has been on the Tory benches. We had what one can only call the William Hague, saloon bar, skinhead approach to politics, in which all the popular prejudices were displayed. Thanks to Mr Monteith, things are now even worse. We now know that Lord Shaftesbury lived in vain, that working children are to be reintroduced into society and that the school-leaving age is to be dramatically lowered. Mr Monteith's contribution explained why the Tories have been excluded from Scottish politics for so long and why they will continue to be excluded. It would have been depressing, but there was a curious ray of sunshine, and I have to describe Mr Murray Tosh as that ray of sunshine. That will embarrass him and probably hold back his progress in the Scottish Conservative party.
I have been called worse.
His contribution was excellent and distinguished. He has practical experience, and has pointed out to us many of the problems and some of the solutions. At the heart of what Murray Tosh said is the fact that serious exclusion is failure. It is a failure of children to integrate, to socialise and to be able to work with their teachers and their peers in society. It is a failure of parents to care for and to manage their children. It is a failure, as Mary Mulligan pointed out, of parents to establish a relationship with the school. That can happen for many complex reasons, not least of which may have been the parents' own experience at school. It is a failure of the school and teachers to cope. That is not a criticism, but a moment comes when a breathing space of some sort is required for the sanity of the school staff and the smooth running of the school. It is a failure of the system, whether that be the local authority as employer or the Government or Executive as resourcer. It is the failure of the system to resource and support individual teachers, schools and families. Exclusion is an expression of failure and how we overcome that failure is the subject of this debate.
No, not at the moment.
The debate should not be an excuse for a litany of individual incidents to make Scottish education appear to be a cross between "Blackboard Jungle" and "Nightmare on Elm Street"—which is what we had from Mr Monteith. Instead we must look at tackling failure.
Although Mr Peacock has spoken of some of the things that are being done, he has not looked widely enough at good practice elsewhere, including, perhaps surprisingly, practice south of the border. Just last week Mr Blunkett announced more resources for learning support units and for secondary schools to take on and tackle the issue of difficult pupils. In France there is more investment in ancillary staff and counselling, coupled with more investment in policing schools. The police have a useful, if regrettable, role in assisting a school if things get out of hand.
Involving parents in education is good practice everywhere. Schools do not have the sole responsibility for educating children; it is a joint responsibility in which parents are deeply involved. We must find strategies and methods to bridge that gap because, as good teachers know, to educate children without parental involvement is to invite failure. When serious exclusion takes place, it is the relationship between the child, the family and the school that is at the heart of solving the problems presented. That is not easy, but children should not be excluded from school and left to be a burden to the community. As Nicola Sturgeon said, we must not export the problem outwith the school. The family must be involved in the solution.
I regret the way this debate began, but it is worth having. I hope that it will finish more positively and contribute to solving the problem, not just for schools and teachers but for families.
Following Mike Russell in introducing a more positive slant—and what Scott Barrie said is closest to where I am coming from—we should not be approaching this from a Roman discipline angle. The debate should be about how to maintain an atmosphere that supports the enjoyment of learning.
What are the problems in maintaining that atmosphere in schools? Our society remains deeply divided with between 20 per cent and 30 per cent of children living in poverty. That is where part of the problem starts. I am glad that the Executive has committed itself to addressing Scotland's problem of poverty.
I have no particular problem with setting targets. I want to see targets for conversion to organic agriculture, for example. But targets should be realistically negotiated in education on a school-by-school basis. Setting an overall target of a 30 per cent reduction in exclusions for Scotland is unrealistic. A school-by-school negotiation of targets can help each school to address its problems in a realistic way.
From the bottom of my heart I support Richard Lochhead's call for research into the numbers of teachers in Scotland suffering from stress, absent through sickness and volunteering for early retirement. Those problems became increasingly evident throughout my teaching career—37 years, Mr Tosh—a third of it in schools that could be described as difficult to teach in. The school I taught in last was in many ways very easy to teach in, but is still a school where teachers suffer from overwork and stress and feel undervalued. At bad times of the year the absence rate was spectacularly high on occasion.
I support what Peter Peacock is trying to do but I am also sympathetically aware that it is not enough because of very limited resources. To follow on from what Mike Russell said, we should find money and put it where it is really needed.
There are already signs that we want to get kindergarten and pre-school education up to a higher standard. However, in primary schools, if we could reduce class sizes to under 20, it would have the most spectacular effect on the quality of education and the stress on teachers. It would mean that the bulk of children going into secondary schools were keen on being in school as they would not have been alienated by being taught in classes of 30. We must get it into our heads that a class of 30 is still too big for a primary teacher to cope with. The children do not get the attention that they deserve.
A class is sitting in the public gallery. I am sure that they would like to have an extra teacher, although I am also sure that they are very fond of the teacher who is with them. Smaller classes would make it easier for everybody, children and teachers. Our aim must be to reduce class sizes. That would do so much to solve this problem.
I am glad to be able to speak in this debate. I am sorry that I missed the beginning of Mr Monteith's speech, as it was clearly very interesting. Did I miss the bit about boot camps and consignment to the army? I am sure that it will be coming, from what other members have said about the tone of his speech.
This is a serious and important issue. There are times when exclusion—or expulsion as it was called in my day—is necessary, because of the disruption caused by a small minority of our pupils. However, it should be the last resort and should be used only when every other avenue has been explored. As Murray Tosh said, and as I know from my experience, that is often the case.
Part of the problem that we face is that, sadly, for many pupils and even for their parents, exclusion is not seen as a punishment. The cynical bit in me might say—Scott Barrie made this point, too—that some see it as a reward and a badge of honour. In some of our communities, a person has to be excluded to be somebody. We must consider why that is so.
The lack of discipline in much of our society is an indictment of what happened in the 1980s. People were seen to have little value. Education did not matter because, whatever happened, people felt that they were going to be consigned to life on the dole or a poorly paid job and would have to live in poverty—that was the experience of their parents, brothers and sisters, so why should it be any different for them? That situation has led to increased drug abuse, crime and social exclusion.
If we are serious about tackling the problem of discipline in our schools, we must deal with the problem of social exclusion in the wider society. We must tackle the issues that cause disruption, a number of which were mentioned by Nicola Sturgeon, Peter Peacock and Mike Russell. One is the fact that parents do not feel involved in their children's education any more.
I welcome many of the recent initiatives. Before I was in politics, I was a community education worker. I worked in what was then the new initiative of home-school community partnerships, which brought together the home, the school and the community to build up the link that was missing. Those partnerships are valuable, as they bring into school parents who had a bad experience of education and whose educational outlook was dull, but who now see that they can play a vital role in their child's education. Those partnerships should be supported and encouraged—I know that the Executive is doing that.
We must deal with other problems that cause exclusion. Children who have difficulty in reading and writing can quickly become bored because they cannot grasp the basics; that can lead to indiscipline. The early intervention strategy is beginning to kick in and is proving successful in tackling some of those problems. The frustration of some of the kids with whom I worked in community education arose because they could not read or write—they could not compete with their friends on a level playing field. The only way in which they could deal with that and get attention was by being bad. The problems grew from that. We failed to tackle some of those problems.
Early intervention is an important step forward, as are alternatives to exclusion. Just before I left my previous job, I was working on some of the pilot projects for alternatives to exclusion. As Scott Barrie said, forming partnerships with local further education colleges and local business is important for some young people, but for others the right option is to keep them in school and to help them towards educational achievements that they have ruled out throughout their educational life. To get some standard grades at any level is an achievement for those people and it gives them a new status in their communities.
We need to reduce the number of exclusions. If we fail to recognise that any increase in the number of exclusions is a bad thing for society, the Government and the Parliament will fail to act. I support the Executive's amendment and ask members to reject the simplistic solutions proposed by the Conservative and Scottish National parties.
Nobody, with the possible exception of Brian Monteith, really believes that excluding children is in itself a good thing. However, I do not believe that the option of exclusion should be de facto removed by target setting.
Discipline problems in schools are destructive for teachers and pupils. They have a profound impact on teacher morale and turn the teacher's day into an exercise in crowd control rather than imparting knowledge. I will focus on the issue of violence against teachers. It is a terrible admission to make that our society has such a problem.
In 1998-99, there were 245 acts of violence per 100,000 pupils, which directly resulted in the loss of a total of 187 working days. Of course, those were only the reported incidents—I am sure that there were many unreported incidents. In total, there were nearly 2,000 violent incidents in that year, almost 40 per cent of which took place in the primary sector. More than half the incidents that were reported involved violence, and the majority of other incidents involved verbal abuse.
What should be done about the problem? The Executive has implemented various schemes targeting disruptive behaviour, such as the alternatives to exclusion programme, which aims to support authorities in finding other ways of dealing with disruptive behaviour. Although such programmes are welcome, it must be recognised that any pupils facing exclusion are likely to have been involved in serious incidents in the school. It is on that point that I have concerns about the Executive's approach, which appears to be driven by easily defined numerical targets, such as reducing expulsions by a third. Although it is good to reduce the number of expulsions, setting targets for that may lead to schools trying to cope with very disruptive or even violent pupils, which may have devastating consequences for teachers or other pupils. The approach fails to recognise the individual requirements of pupils and may not be in their best interests in the long run.
Schools need to keep the option of expulsion—I was pleased that, to some degree, the minister confirmed that they would be able to. Schools' decisions on discipline should not be influenced in any way by Government targets. Does the minister really believe that target setting will not influence a head teacher's decision on expulsion?
We recognise that disruptive pupils have special needs. As has been stated, to meet those needs schools require adequate facilities, learning support, adequately trained teachers and appropriate class sizes, all of which cost money. However, education authorities across the country are having to make cuts in many areas. The clear message to the Executive from today's debate is that Scottish schools need to be adequately resourced if real improvement is to be made in standards of discipline.
We now move to winding-up speeches.
I begin with a slightly off-the-wall complaint. I wish the Parliament would give us a wee bit more notice of motions and amendments. That information is arriving very late and it is difficult for our staff to help us to prepare. I am not talking about the Conservatives' business in particular; it is simply that I have been asked to raise that matter today.
As a teacher who left the profession—although not in a drove as Brian Monteith suggested—I was very interested in the singular contribution of Mr Montooth. Jamie Stone spoke about violent incidents. When I was a pupil, three pupils went into the chemistry department and burned down my school. In a very good job-creation scheme, two of those pupils got jobs building the new school. That is true.
Brian Monteith's motion contains some grains of sense but is misguided at its heart. I am not a fan of targets or target setting, but targets themselves are not wicked. They should be sensible, open to discussion and agreed with the people involved so that they direct policy in an appropriate way. In this case, I am slightly worried about the 30 per cent target. I wonder where it came from; work might need to be done on that.
As Brian said, the problem with disruptive pupils is to be solved not by politicians but as far as possible within the school and, failing that, within the local authority. A pupil should be excluded from education only as a last resort. It is sensible to recognise that we cannot wash our hands of disruptive or difficult pupils. Pupils who are not inside the education system are alienated from society, community and from our values. We ignore that alienation at our peril. As Jamie Stone indicated, the London statistics show that the crime rate among kids who are not in school is astonishing and deeply worrying. Those children include not just the ones who have been permanently excluded, but those who are skipping school.
The acceptance of open-ended exclusion is a doctrine of despair. Setting targets is not the problem, although I hope that it can be part of the solution. We do not think that classroom teachers should be forced to tolerate chronic disruptive behaviour that seriously damages the working ethos and good order of their classes. Richard Lochhead and Murray Tosh spoke effectively and accurately about teacher stress and the way in which exclusion can be part of the solution. I want to make a distinction between long-term exclusion and the temporary exclusion that Murray was talking about, in which pupils are sent home for a couple of days and their parents are brought in to discuss the problems with the school. That is not reprehensible; it is a tactic that tries to bring in the parents and is used effectively on a daily basis.
We are all in the same camp—even Brian Monteith—because we want to improve discipline in schools. Peter Peacock gave a full account of developments in his opening remarks, which, as Nicola Sturgeon acknowledged, are positive steps in the right direction.
Scott Barrie talked about bringing in social workers and so on; that, too, is absolutely right. All those other agencies should be involved. Murray Tosh and others talked about parents, whose involvement is valuable.
I agree with Robin Harper about class sizes. Everyone in the profession would say that class sizes are important. When the minister revises the Scottish schools code, I hope that he will accept that and examine class sizes carefully.
In a sense, I agree with some members that the terms of the Executive amendment, on paper, sound a bit complacent. I am glad that the minister's speech showed that that was not the case and I am pleased that the tone of the rest of the debate was in keeping with that.
I regret that the debate has been so short. The issue is complex and, if the Tories thought that it was worth debating, they should have given it the whole morning. Teachers need our support, as do parents and pupils. The solution will not be easy and will not come cheap. If we all work together, we can do something about the problem.
For all that the Tories' credibility on this issue is somewhat limited, I am glad that we have had the opportunity to debate the matter.
Ian Jenkins rightly said that politicians alone cannot solve the problem of indiscipline in school. That much is true, but it is also true that the policies that we adopt will have a real impact on other people's ability to tackle the problem. It is also the case that the policies that politicians adopt have the potential to hinder those who are at the sharp end and have to deal with the problems. That is why I have to conclude by saying that I am not over-impressed by the Tories' approach, nor indeed by that of the minister. As I said, the Tory approach, which simply takes a few examples and presents them as the norm in our schools, is scaremongering. That does a service to nobody, whether pupils or teachers.
Nicola Sturgeon and others have been consistent in trying to portray our position as something that we have made plain it is not. Does she accept that my opening speech was based not only on examples and quotes from a social worker, a teacher and a director of education—none of whom, I believe, is a member of the Conservative party—but on comments from her own past speeches?
I did indeed identify the direct quotes from a speech that I made at a recent conference. Brian Monteith drew on that conference a lot today; I think that he attended it for 45 minutes out of the entire day, so I am glad that he has, at least, read the conference notes. In any event, his approach is to scaremonger and to use examples that, I am sure, are valid but are to some extent taken out of context.
On Labour's approach, I accept that much good work is under way but there was a hint of complacency in the minister's speech. I would have liked him to acknowledge—perhaps he will do so when he sums up—that the imposition of statistical targets can be a problem. Many head teachers will admit privately that the pressure not to exclude—brought about by the targets—and the pressure of the bureaucracy that surrounds exclusions lead in some cases to children remaining in mainstream schools when it would be to the benefit not only of other pupils but to those children themselves for them to be removed, even temporarily, from those schools. In other cases, those pressures lead to head teachers using informal exclusion, whereby they work around the formal procedures by asking a parent to take a pupil out of school for a couple of days to allow a situation to calm down. Neither of those things is to the benefit of anybody in the education system.
The minister needs to acknowledge that part of the reason why teachers feel under so much pressure is that they are being asked to perform tasks that are, on the face of it, conflicting. On the one hand, they are asked to teach an increasing number of pupils who have serious problems and whose behaviour may disrupt daily the entire classroom. On the other hand, they are expected to raise standards continuously and to ensure that their school is high up the league tables, a position for which they will be held publicly accountable. Such matters should not be conflicting, and would not be if we valued the work of a teacher in keeping a difficult pupil within mainstream education as much as we valued the work of a teacher in getting a well-behaved pupil through his or her exams. However, that is not the current culture of education in this country and, as a result, a lot of pressure is placed on teachers.
Schools around the country are finding that they have to do more with less; although they have to keep difficult children within mainstream education, they do not have the resources to do so. We need more specialist teachers, learning support teachers and behavioural support teachers and more facilities in schools to deal with pupils who cause most difficulty.
Finally, I want to say a few words about exclusion. Many speakers have said that exclusion is seen as a reward for bad behaviour; the minister himself said that it simply allowed pupils to miss out on learning. We must fix that problem, because exclusion should not be seen as a soft option or a means of exporting the problem elsewhere. If exclusion is part of a discipline strategy, it should be used constructively. Although I do not often cite David Blunkett, the Executive could learn from his work in this area to ensure that exclusion is used constructively to the benefit of pupils who require to be removed. I am not sure that the Tories or Labour are dealing with the complexities of this issue, and I look forward to the minister's closing remarks.
After a faltering start, this has turned out to be a good and thoughtful debate. I am sorry to embarrass Murray Tosh—sometimes we Hawick people have to stick together—but I have to say that his speech was excellent; he drew on his own experience to recognise that this issue is complex and serious. That speech contrasted sharply with Brian Monteith's recovering bovver-boy approach. I should add that Robin Harper and Ian Jenkins, who were both teachers, also gave thoughtful speeches that drew on their experiences.
I stress that the Executive takes this issue very seriously. This morning's debate has shown that there is much common ground among the parties, and I welcome the chamber's support for our efforts. We are trying to make a comprehensive start to tackling a complex and long-standing issue that will take a long time to resolve to anyone's satisfaction.
I have been listening to members' suggestions about what the Executive can do further on this matter. Policy and practice is developing in this area, and we want to take further action where possible. I have visited some of the new units that are being developed partly through the alternatives to exclusion fund—notwithstanding Richard Lochhead's comments, I understand that such funding is being used to develop two new units in Aberdeenshire. Such units are finding new ways in which to address young people's difficulties, to engage them in the education process and to help them to confront their behavioural problems and deal with them positively.
I recently visited Burnfoot Community School, which the minister will know well, and was impressed by the efforts to build children's social skills at an early age to tackle deep-seated social problems. Can the minister say whether resources for such measures will be mainlined and made permanent for those schools, and whether resources will be available to extend the practice to other places?
Expenditure for the new community schools programme is part of the Executive's overall baseline. This phenomenon is not temporary; we want the principles and the culture change embodied in the concept of community schools to be rolled out across the system. This process is not at an end; it is just beginning.
As Murray Tosh, Scott Barrie, Nicola Sturgeon, Robin Harper and Karen Gillon have pointed out, the situation is not easy and there is no one answer to the problems confronted by schools. As they rightly say, the issue does not just concern schools; we must widen our approach and involve organisations such as health and social services agencies and the police. Part of the reasoning behind the new community schools concept is to allow that to happen more effectively.
Although the issue is not just about setting targets, targets are important. First and foremost, targets set a broad direction for us to move in. For example, pressure must be brought to bear to reduce the number of exclusions. Being excluded from school is the beginning of the process of being excluded from society. We want to combat that.
Setting a direction through targets is important. It creates a focus for attention and drives forward a search for the alternatives to excluding young people. However, targets are only one part of the approach. I have already alluded to our early intervention programme. Classroom assistants have been introduced to address to some extent the issue of class sizes—bringing the ratio of pupils to teachers to an average of 1:15 rather than 1:30. I hope that, over time, that will develop. Sure start Scotland tries to take a more comprehensive family approach to developing support for young people. Pre-school and nursery education are allowing earlier intervention. There are also out-of-school clubs, homework support, new community schools—which we have talked about—and the personal learning plans that are developing from them.
The need to bring the police more actively into the school setting has been mentioned. I hope that that was not meant in a draconian sense. Part of the ethos of new community schools is to encourage the development of proper partnerships and arrangements with such agencies. The anti-bullying network is playing an important role. There is also a need for continuing professional development to support teachers in their task. Initial teacher education is also important in teaching people how to deal with discipline matters. That is being developed.
Scott Barrie referred to the school ethos. It is important that that is developed and that schools encourage achievement, celebrate success, have high expectations for every child and find means to include children in their education. A number of members referred to the importance of involving parents as partners in the education process. We share that view. We want to develop that and to give it a high priority. That is why the Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Bill begins to place burdens on local authorities to find ways of involving parents in their children's education.
There is a list of things that we want to do and that we are doing. Targets are only one part of a comprehensive package, which sets the direction and sends a clear signal about what we want.
Will the minister give way?
I must wind up.
In the final analysis, it is the head teacher's judgment of a situation that must carry the day. I would not criticise a head teacher who, having put in place the proper mechanisms to deal with discipline matters in his or her school, felt, as a final solution, that they had to exclude somebody. They must decide whether exclusion is necessary to relieve pressure on the school and to allow time to develop alternative mechanisms and so on.
In that context, I believe that we have a positive approach. When David Mundell, who is usually a positive person, winds up, I hope that he will move away from some of the rather damaging comments made by his colleagues. I hope that he will be able to expand on his party's policy of lowering the school-leaving age, because I am interested to know to what age it would be lowered—15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10 or whatever—as I am not clear about that. I hope that he will develop a positive agenda. There is much that we share and there is much to be done. This is a serious issue that must be addressed.
This has been a useful and helpful debate. I take issue slightly with something that Ian Jenkins said. It would be useful if he were to bring pressure to bear on his coalition colleagues to ensure that the Parliament's agenda better reflected the issues that people want to be debated. Discipline in schools is a real issue for parents, pupils and teachers. It is higher up the agenda of the average person in Scotland than some of the things that have been debated in Parliament in the past year. I am sure that Ian Jenkins will use his influence in the coming months.
What subjects was the member thinking of?
Section 28, for example, was a subject raised by the Executive, which we then had to use our time to debate.
Will the member take an intervention?
As long as it is a small one.
I have a query. The Conservatives have made much of section 28—there is no debate about that. Will David Mundell enlighten the chamber as to why the Conservative education spokesperson, having lodged amendments on section 28 to the Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Bill, failed to turn up to the committee meeting on Tuesday to move them, which meant that those amendments fell? Is not that a waste of parliamentary time?
I am not familiar with the circumstances.
As always in such debates, the contributions of people who have been directly involved add greatly to the discussion. Murray Tosh, Robin Harper, Ian Jenkins and Karen Gillon—speaking in her capacity as a community education worker—bring perspective to a debate such as this, and their contributions are helpful to everybody participating.
My wife recently returned to teaching as a supply teacher. I was struck by the availability of work. When Lynda first said that she was going to return to teaching, she thought that she would work one or two days a week, but found that there is a constant search for supply teachers.
That shortage must be a result of stress and of the management system, which takes so many teachers out of the classroom during the working day. The continuity of having the same teacher must be related to the issue of discipline. That is an important factor, which I would like Peter Peacock to consider.
Murray Tosh spoke about teachers being asked to deal with all the problems of society. That is not something that we can or should ask of our teachers. They cannot deal with marital break-up, the conflict between parents or parents wanting children to do things in the evening other than their homework. We must understand that the background against which teachers are working is changing. As Murray indicated, we should give them the support within the teaching environment—with in-service training, for example—to be able to deal with those issues relating to wider society.
Jamie Stone and Mary Mulligan talked about parents. Parents have an enormously important role, but a worrying recent statistic is that about one in 10 violent incidents within schools involve parents themselves. That is a cause for concern.
A head teacher to whom I spoke recently told me that he was concerned about what happened around the school gate and his inability to control it. That is one of the problems with exclusion. The head teacher's remit extends to the school gate; if people are inciting or causing difficulty outside that gate, that is a matter for the police, time scale issues arise and the problem becomes much more complicated.
Shona Robison spoke about violence against teachers. That is a serious problem, which reflects changes in society and in how classrooms are managed.
The Scottish Executive has set a target of reducing the number of school exclusions by 33 per cent by 2002. We have clearly stated in this debate that we do not accept that target, as we do not believe that such targets will work. We are constantly told that education should be pupil centred, yet the Executive's policy is to set a national target that bears no relation to what is happening in individual schools. The needs of the child, their classmates and their teacher are not part of that target. The decision to exclude any pupil must be made on the individual merits of the case.
The working environment is very much driven by targets. As members have said, there is a conflict of interest between the individual classroom teacher and the local authority, which wants to please the Scottish Executive by meeting the targets. That conflict of interest creates an environment that is not wholly suitable for dealing with the issues.
We agree with the Executive that every effort should be made to improve behaviour and reduce violence and disruption while retaining as many pupils as possible in mainstream schools. We believe that that can be achieved through programmes that promote positive discipline—those programmes were started by the Conservative Government—and through having special units that act as sin bins. David Blunkett has recognised the need for more such units, which allow good order to be maintained and educational standards to be upheld for pupils in mainstream schools who would otherwise have their education disrupted.
As it is important that we listen to the views of those who are most directly involved in the areas that we are discussing, I conclude by quoting Nigel de Gruchy of the NAS/UWT. He said:
"When serious anti-social behaviour occurs, it must be seen by other pupils to be met with a response. The message has to be that such behaviour is simply unacceptable. If it cannot be cured or at least contained then exclusion must follow. But it is essential to convey a message to everyone else."
On that point, I reiterate support for our motion.