Tories aim to ban mobiles in classrooms!!

We will ban mobiles in classrooms say Tories

By BENEDICT BROGAN - More by this author » Last updated at 22:21pm on 18th November 2007 Comments (20)

Mobile phones would be banned from the classroom under a crackdown on school discipline by the Tories.

The measure is contained in an education policy document intended to help hand back power to teachers.

Under proposals to be unveiled by David Cameron tomorrow, heads would get the final say on expulsions.

They would also be allowed to impose legally-binding behaviour contracts on pupils.

Yesterday the proposals were greeted with derision by Labour, which said teachers already had many of the powers being proposed.

Scroll down for more...

Phones in classrooms would be outlawed by the Tories, says Michael Gove

The Conservatives particularly want to do away with the appeals process that has allowed excluded students to defy frustrated teachers and return to the classroom.

Read more...

• We'll get all children to read by six, pledges David Cameron

Tory education spokesman Michael Gove said he was prepared to legislate to ensure an exclusion decision could no longer be overturned by an outside tribunal.

Teachers' leaders, however, said making heads responsible could force them to defend their rulings in court if parents challenged a decision to exclude a pupil.

The Tories say behaviour contracts could be used by heads as a condition of entry for a pupil.

Parents would be asked to guarantee the good conduct of their child or face having an application for admission refused.

In exchange they would be given weekly behaviour reports that would impose credits and debits, with monthly rewards or penalties.

The disruptive problems of mobile phones come in for special mention with the Tories proposing that teachers are given powers to stop children bringing them into class.

Mr Gove said: "Poor pupil behaviour is the most serious problem preventing teachers doing the job they love. Classhaverooms in which students are disruptive are environments in which no one can learn.

"We must do more to tackle the problems of poor discipline and high rates of truancy if the opportunities of education are to be open to all. Teachers to be given the tools to tackle this issue at root.

"The balance has to shift back in the classroom, in favour of the teacher."

The Conservatives would also scrap the Key Stage 1 exam for six and seven-year-olds and replace it with a straightforward reading test.

Mr Gove said that "eradicating the plague of reading failure" would be the bedrock of further improvements in educational achievement.

A focus on reading skills will call for every child to be able to read by the age of six.

Mr Cameron will pledge to make phonics the accepted system for teaching to read. Phonics emphasises learning the sounds made by individual letters and putting them together to decipher whole words.

Mr Gove said: "It is only once children have learnt to read that they can then go on to read to learn. But every year thousands of children leave primary school without the ability to read properly."

Schools Secretary Ed Balls said yesterday there was "nothing new" in the proposals.

He added: "They are either calling for things we are already doing or proposing to turn back the clock. Their policy to abolish appeals for exclusions is misconceived and unworkable."

John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the move on expulsions would result in more schools being taken to court.

• Parents do not have a "meaningful choice" over where they send their children to school, it is claimed today.

A study by the centre-right Policy Exchange think-tank says half of all youngsters in some areas are educated outside their local authority because of concerns over school quality.

The report, Choice? What Choice?, also found what it says is increasing disenchantment with the Government's academies programme among sponsors.

It says the areas exporting the highest proportions of their children are Lambeth, Hackney, Reading, Bristol and Lewisham.

Report author Sam Freedman said: "The number of children who fail to gain a place at their parents' first-choice school, and the number of subsequent appeals, is clear evidence that not enough high-quality school places are being provided."

In more than a fifth of local authorities in England, more than 20 per cent of parents fail to get a place at their firstchoice school, the report claims.

The report said academies were succesful in terms of results and parental popularity but it warned their indepenence was being eroded.

It said local authorities were being encourged to co-sponsor academies, which "entirely defeats the purpose of providing greater diversity".

"The reason we don't support the Tory proposal is because we have consistently said appeals panels provide the natural justice avenue of appeal," he said.