On 1 April 2007 the school discipline chapter
of the Education and Inspection Act 2006 came into force,
implementing many of the recommendations of the Steer Group on
School Behaviour and Discipline. On 11 April 2007, the Government
issued non-statutory guidance on how to use the potentially wide
new powers to discipline pupils.
The Government has been keen to trumpet these
new powers, saying that they redress the balance between teacher
and pupil. However, some argue that these new provisions are
unnecessary and will achieve little. School discipline has long
been a key aspect of good school management and teachers have been
far from powerless in their efforts to preserve discipline, Dai
Durbridge, education expert at law firm Browne Jacobson, points
out. However, the Government has been keen to be seen to provide
up-to-date legislation.
One point needs to be made clear; the new
powers are not a return to corporal punishment. Staff cannot use
force as a punishment. Instead, the use of force is allowed to stop
a pupil:
- Committing an offence
- Injuring himself or another
- Damaging property
- Prejudicing the maintenance of good order and discipline at the
school
In truth, most of this is not new. Staff at
schools have long had the power to use reasonable force to prevent
offending, injury or damage to property. The truly novel aspect to
the new powers is the right to use force to maintain "good order
and discipline". It is couched in broad terms and this leaves ample
room for differences of opinion on whether force would be justified
in any given circumstance.
Let us assume that a teacher decides to
confiscate a pupil's mobile phone in the classroom after a pupil
continually distracts others with texts, calls and games during a
lesson, thereby 'prejudicing the maintenance of good order and
discipline at the school'. Under the Act, can the teacher use force
to confiscate the phone? If so, how much force should be used? What
if the pupil were to refuse to hand over the phone? Is further
force justified?
Before these powers can be invoked, school
staff will arguably need clearer guidance as there is currently
little practical guidance on how and when these powers could and
should be used. Without such clarification, school staff may
consider relying on these new powers to be a high risk
strategy.
Against this background, it remains to be seen
to what extent teachers do now use force simply to maintain good
order in the classroom. As ever, it is probable that case law will
be required to explore the practical meaning of these legislative
developments.
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