Bullying (Schools)

Nick Gibb Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) for her kind comments. It is nice, after all these years, to call one another “honourable Friend”. I congratulate her on securing this important debate.

Tackling poor behaviour both in and, as my hon. Friend pointed out in her compelling remarks, out of school is one of this Government’s top priorities. I know that she has been a tireless advocate on this issue in her constituency and in championing the work of 4Children, Beatbullying—a charity I know very well—and others to improve pupils’ behaviour in the wider community.

Our coalition agreement places a sharp focus on robust standards across the education system, the highest quality of teaching and high standards of discipline in the classroom. Poor behaviour is a real concern. Pupils cannot learn if they are late to class or if their lessons are disrupted. Teachers do not want to stay in the profession if they feel intimidated by poor behaviour. Parents need assurance that their child’s school provides a secure, happy environment in which their child is focused on their education. However, the fundamental driver for dealing with poor behaviour is the impact on pupils themselves. The disruption and distress caused by bullying can be very damaging, as my hon. Friend said. Education is important, but children’s safety is paramount, so we have made an explicit commitment in the coalition agreement to help schools to tackle bullying, especially homophobic bullying.

As my hon. Friend said, the problem is not confined to the classroom. There has been much recent media coverage of extreme cases of poor behaviour, linking bullying to suicide. She cited the statistics and research produced by Beatbullying, and spoke about how bullying has directly affected some of her constituents. I, too, have met Paul Vodden, the father of Ben. The case of his son, who tragically committed suicide as a result of bullying on a school bus, highlights the catastrophic effects that bullying can have and the urgent need for action.

As my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) pointed out in his intervention, bullying can lead to serious mental health problems, and children with special educational needs can be particularly vulnerable to it. The Department for Education, through the anti-bullying alliance, is looking at the most effective way to deal with the bullying of children with special educational needs and disabilities. Although guidance on bullying on school transport was produced in April last year, we will look closely at the issue as we review the work on bullying and behaviour more widely. This is a top priority for our Government and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole said, there is much room for improvement.

In a survey last year, 28% of pupils said that they had been bullied in the last year and 59% said that they feel that their schools deal with bullying well, which prompts questions about the other 41%—the four in 10 who feel that their schools should be doing more. Currently, a raft of guidance advises schools on anti-bullying policies, written policies and specific forms of bullying. It is lengthy and confusing, so we have asked officials to sharpen and strengthen it to ensure that it has practical value and, as my hon. Friend points out, is implemented in our schools. We also need to make sure that the law is clear so that teachers feel confident when they use the powers that Parliament has vested in them.

Schools have a duty to prevent and tackle bullying but in tackling bullying they need to address the specific problems that their schools face, based on intelligence about what is driving bullying and where it is taking place. I recently visited a school where pupils were desperate to get home at the end of the day and did not take part in any of the school’s extracurricular activities. The reason they were hurrying home was not that they wanted to watch “The Magic Roundabout” or “The Flintstones”, but that they were thirsty. Further investigation revealed that the reason they were thirsty was that they were not drinking any water during the day because they did not want to go into the school toilets where the gangs were hanging out. That problem was relatively straightforward to solve once it was known what was happening. Building that awareness and sharing information within the school is very important so that teachers know what is going on in their school.

We also need to be sure that teachers can confidently and effectively deal with poor behaviour. Trainees on initial teacher training routes need to demonstrate that they have met certain standards, including standards relating to discipline, behaviour management and bullying.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

The Minister is talking very eloquently about the need to ensure that proper training is in place and I fully support that, but we also need to ensure that, once teachers have been trained and are in post, the pressures on them from above do not work against dealing with bullying. At present, the exclusion targets, the emphasis on social inclusion and the pressure on teachers within schools in some cases almost to deny that there are any behaviour problems work against the interests of the school and ultimately against the interests of pupils. We have to make sure that teachers feel able to deal with the problems and that means having proper powers in place to ensure discipline.

[Mr Gibb]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that important intervention. He is absolutely right. One of the things that I have discovered from visiting schools is the importance of support from the head teacher for teachers, so that when parents come into the school to complain about a teacher, the head supports that teacher—certainly unless there are serious allegations. If teachers do not know that they have the backing of the head teacher, it makes their job twice as hard as it need be.

We have committed in the coalition agreement to

“give heads and teachers the powers they need to ensure discipline in the classroom and promote good behaviour.”

We will introduce legislation in the autumn that will give teachers the right to remove disruptive children from the classroom without fear of legal action and give them greater powers to search pupils for particular banned items. The list of banned items will be extended beyond the list that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole and I discussed during the Committee stage of the last couple of education Bills that went through the House. There will also be no-notice inspections for schools where behaviour is a serious problem.

All schools must look at behaviour and not be complacent. It is not always a given that poor behaviour happens in the most challenging areas. Over the past five years, I have visited nearly 300 schools around the country. I have been to schools in very affluent areas where behaviour is a real problem because the processes and policies for dealing within bullying are simply not sufficient. Sometimes, as my hon. Friend said, those policies are not implemented on the ground. It is all very well having them written down, but they have to put into practice. In contrast, a school such as Mossbourne community academy in Hackney—one of the most deprived parts of London—has an immaculate behaviour record.

In its inspection framework, in relation to behaviour, Ofsted draws a clear distinction between good schools and outstanding schools. In good schools, pupils are compliant with the rules, fearing the consequences if they misbehave; but in outstanding schools, pupils do not just comply, but take responsibility for their own behaviour. That is the gold standard that I am sure my hon. Friend and I both want to achieve throughout schools in this country.

I had lunch fairly recently with some pupils in the school canteen at Mossbourne academy, and I asked them about bullying. They told me that bullying does not happen in their school and said, “We’re not allowed to engage in verbal bullying.” They volunteered that information to me, which showed an acute awareness of what constitutes bullying and its impact on others. When such an approach works well, the effects are often seen in the wider community, too. On becoming an academy last September, a school in my constituency introduced a new blazer and tie uniform and shaped a clear ethos and identity for the school. Pupils’ behaviour improved in the school to such an extent that it was noticeable in the town. People have commented to me about the behaviour of young people in the town since the school had adopted that new approach to behaviour.

We must be clear about responsibilities outside schools. Under the Education and Inspections Act 2006, schools have powers to take measures to regulate the conduct of pupils off-site, including journeys to and from school. The best schools take that responsibility very seriously and use those powers when appropriate. A head teacher in Cumbria told me that he felt responsible not just as a head, but as a member of the local community. Any poor behaviour that he heard about in, say, the town during the weekend, he took up with pupils first thing on the Monday morning, and because it was a tight-knit community, he could often trace and track the perpetrators of the poor behaviour. Such behaviour creates a bigger challenge if the school is situated in a larger, urban city such as London, but the answer to the problem must be partnership.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

The Minister has set out some excellent actions to take within the school environment and now he is touching on actions to take outside that environment, such as on journeys to and from school, which the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) spoke about; but does that apply also to social network sites and cyber-bullying, which are not under the direct control of schools or teachers?

[Mr Gibb]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising such an important issue. Dealing with cyber-bullying is important, and we are working with industry to make sure that, when offensive material appears on a social network, it is removed instantly. There is good guidance for teachers on how they should tackle incidents of cyber-bullying that are reported to them.

[Annette Brooke]

When a parent makes a complaint about bullying to the school and that bullying has taken place on the school bus or outside the school, what will definitively trigger the school taking the complaint seriously? Such behaviour is out of sight, so it is easy to ignore it. The essence of Mr. Vodden’s argument is that the problems were not taken seriously.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. My sense is that when schools do not take such matters seriously, that is a symptom of a deeper problem with the management of the school. I suspect that if we undertook a survey of schools’ attitudes to reports of poor behaviour from parents, we would see a direct correlation with the standards in those schools generally. We have to raise standards in the way schools are lead throughout the country. That is what we hope to achieve in our general policy of trusting professionals more and giving them more autonomy and more freedom to run their schools as they see fit. I believe that if we can get away from the culture that exists in some areas, we can reach a position where that professionalism means that every aspect of the school is run more professionally and that complaints are taken seriously by head teachers and teachers. It is also important to ensure that teachers understand their own powers and responsibilities, which is what we want to sharpen up and focus on when reviewing the guidance.

We believe strongly that there is a duty not only in schools but in local authorities to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. It is a collective responsibility that must be shared by those in the community, including the school, the staff of children’s services, the police, transport providers and so on. Sharing the responsibility among services is vital.

This has been an important debate. School and the routes to and from school—indeed, anywhere that pupils congregate—should not be places of dread, but places where children can feel safe, confident and focused on their education. The Government are committed to reducing bullying significantly and to securing for generations to come the progression, knowledge and supportive educational environment that will provide pupils with a platform for future success.