Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that parents of disruptive children are made fully aware of their child's bad behaviour.

The majority of schools are safe and disciplined environments, where teachers are respected and pupils learn in an orderly environment. Nevertheless, Ofsted indicated in its 2013 annual report that there are 700,000 pupils in schools where behaviour is just not good enough.

The Government has taken strong action to support schools in maintaining discipline and developing a culture of respect for teacher authority. In the Education Act 2011, we strengthened teachers’ powers to discipline pupils for poor behaviour. Teachers can now issue same-day detentions and search pupils for banned items. We have also provided clarity on the use of reasonable force. Earlier this year we outlined a range of tough but proportionate sanctions that teachers can use to punish poor behaviour and maintain discipline. From January 2014, Ofsted introduced ‘no-notice’ inspections for schools with behaviour issues.

All schools must, by law, have a behaviour policy and make this known to parents, usually by placing it on the school’s website. Our advice makes clear that it is vital that the behaviour policy is well understood by staff, parents and pupils, and that it is consistently applied.

Good schools recognise the importance of engaging parents and have developed their own approaches according to the particular circumstances of the school. In March 2014, we published a series of case studies on managing behaviour and bullying, which include examples of what good schools are doing to engage parents in a spirit of openness and shared responsibility. These case studies are published online at:

www.gov.uk/government/collections/managing-behaviour-and-bullying-in-schools-case-studies