A Non-Negotiable Strict Disciplinary Code Implemented In All Schools

— According to OFSTED, as many as 50% of today's school children are said to have some problems with basic discipline in the classroom, and recent years have seen what can happen when discipline is not enforced in schools — the worst-behaved kids just take over and ruin the educational chances of many of their peers whilst ruining many teachers' careers in the process. What a betrayal, and how unnecessary.

The solution is what it has always been — discipline. The best schools have always known this, the faith-based schools and Academies have proved that such an approach can work with children from less-affluent areas too, so let's get on with it.

Pupils should also be expected to conform to the radical idea of behaving respectfully towards their teachers, not merely not assaulting or verbally abusing them.

The head teacher must have complete control over all expulsions. This will put teachers firmly back in control of the classroom — and there must be no LEAs or obscure appeals boards to force re-acceptance of disruptive or even dangerous pupils.

Pupils Banned From Taking Their Mobile Phones Into School

There is a growing recognition that premature, extensive use of mobile phones and social media sites can have a damaging effect on vulnerable young minds and characters. Increasingly too, education authorities across the world are placing restrictions on pupils' use of mobile phones when at school. This party welcomes these recent developments as essential ways to reduce pupil distraction when in class and to increase healthy pupil-to-pupil interactions during breaktimes. We will impose a complete ban on pupils taking their mobile phones into school.

The First Day of Every Term To Include A Standardised, Behavioural Sit-Quietly-In-Class Test

The ability of other pupils to properly learn in class and maximise their educational potential is drastically reduced when pupils with self-control or attention-seeking behavioural issues are regularly fidgeting, talking or interrupting the teacher. So rather than allow days or weeks of valuable learning time to be needlessly lost before the teacher reluctantly finally removes the disruptive pupils(s) to separate on-site classes (often with howls of protest or abuse by the pupils' parents), we will consult with educational professionals to design a STANDARDISED behavioural test (possibly along the lines of simply being able to sit still in silence for 30 minutes) that ALL pupils will be required to pass each term before being permitted to participate in regular classes.

Disruptive Attention-Seeking Pupils Given Separate On-Site Classes

The trend in recent years to teach pupils with special needs in facilities within the school grounds has been a welcome change. Children exhibiting non-aggressive attention-seeking behaviour must be taught separately from the main classes, but should remain on school premises with the aim of continuing with normal lessons whilst specialists seek to target and reach these troubled children at their point of need. The aim should be to return these pupils to normal classes as soon as possible and without them falling behind. By remaining on site, these children can benefit from the continuity of continuing to share break-times, sports and many practical lessons with their usual classmates.

Aggressive and Truanting Pupils Removed To Secure 'New Deal' Schools

Our aim and hope is to build an education system that has zero-tolerance for physical and verbal bullying.

After years of initiatives and endless talk, much bullying remains unchallenged in schools across the country. Bullying makes thousands of valuable young lives a misery. It is NOT inevitable, the only thing that is inevitable is that bullies will continue their bullying unless and until they are robustly, repeatedly and effectively challenged on the point. If they don't desist, they MUST be removed to an environment where they no longer have vulnerable youngsters to prey upon. This will be made possible by our policies of establishing New Deal schools for the bullies and trouble-makers, and leaving the decision of when to place them there with teachers.

If bullying is to be properly and fully tackled — as it must — teachers themselves will also need to undergo something of a transformation on the point too. There can be no more just 'letting it go' because its easier to do so, and no retreating to the staffroom at meal and break times — leaving the vulnerable unprotected and an easy target for the bullies to casually wreak their havoc. Surveillance must be everywhere, with no 'blind spots' by the bike sheds, quiet corridors or in the loos, and extend beyond the school gates. It is the bullies that must be made afraid of bullying (for fear of the consequences that will befall them if they succumb to expressing their aggressive tendencies), not the vast majority of children that just want to go to school to learn and play and make new friends.

Any pupils exhibiting violent or threatening behaviour must not be allowed to wreak havoc on the smooth functioning of the school, a class, other pupils or the teachers. It is intolerable that teachers are expected to continue teaching classes containing pupils that have attacked them and who have to all intents and purposes 'got away with it'. Pupils committing such offences should spend the remainder of the term at a local secure 'New Deal' school where the bad behaviour will be confronted 'come what may' and every help offered to help the pupil face any underlying emotional issues. If the pupil's behaviour improves sufficiently whilst at New Deal school then, subject to the permission of the expelling school, one attempt only should be made to reintegrate the pupil back into their previous school. Any further serious offence should mean another term at New Deal and reintegration back into a different school. If a third serious offence is committed at the new school, then the pupil should complete the remainder of their education until age 18 at New Deal.

Also, school grounds must no longer be seen as somehow an area outside the normal legal process, allowing serious offences to be committed with laughably lenient punishment. Offences on school grounds should be treated as though committed outside school grounds and if of a serious nature should be subject to police investigation and prosecution in Youth Court in the usual manner.

Zero-tolerance should also be applied to the problem of truancy, as it is essential to break the cycle of opting-out of lessons, getting into trouble on the streets and then becoming a magnate for other would-be truants to 'buck the system'. Everyday, truanting pupils will therefore be relentlessly pursued and rounded-up and taken to school. Regular truanting will mean a term at New Deal school and for the hardcore, regular truanting will mean tagging and being detained overnight on school days.

Secure New Deal Schools — A Deterrent For Crime-Time Wannabes and A Punishment For Convicted Youth Offenders

Sufficient secure New Deal Schools will therefore be built in every county in the country to meet the local level of need for them and each school will be a cross between ordinary school, youth club and a secure youth detention centre. All schools will aim to run a normal national curriculum and will benefit from large grounds to allow ample scope for all manner of sports, adventure games and practical projects and hobbies. They will be staffed by teachers, educational social workers, prison officers, probation officers and volunteers. Whatever devices and behaviours a child has developed to undermine the normal educational system it is at New Deal school that they will meet their match. To avoid distractions and the tendency for young males to 'hang tough' and remain 'strong' when there are girls around to impress — the schools will be single sex. This will also give a powerful incentive (perhaps the most powerful incentive of all) to young male pupils to reform, so they can get back to normal school and the young ladies!

The schools aim will be to serve as both a respite centre for schools, communities and families struggling with troubled youngsters and as places where those same youngsters can be given incentive, opportunity and genuine help to turn themselves around. Beyond the need to maintain discipline and confront offending behaviour, the all-out focus will be on helping to meet any emotional deficits in offenders' young lives and systematically search and find the skills and activities in which they have real ability.

Also, because of the difference one sensible significant relationship with a responsible adult can make to a child or troubled teen, every conceivable effort will be made to match up youngsters with teachers and counsellors that they naturally respect and can communicate with in a genuine way — even if this means significant weekly travelling for staff members and pupils. In this regard, funds will be made available for the creation of well-paid, part-time Befrienders with a mission to simply circulate and try and engage the youngsters in respectful, meaningful chat. Recruitment efforts will focus on encouraging contributions from positive community role models, reformed former New Deal pupils and those individuals that just naturally have the knack of commanding respect from offenders.

There will be different separated streams at New Deal schools — for convicted violent offenders, spout-off class-disruptoholics and truants — so that additional bad behaviours are not acquired from other pupils and so that each group can receive the targeted help and encouragement they need to reform.

Personal and Social Development classes will be taught in earnest at New Deal School and any and every form of active participation with the programme rewarded.

A key focus at the schools will be to try and steer offenders away from superficial, cartoon concepts of 'true' masculinity that have often contributed to offending behaviour, towards a more relaxed-but-robust masculinity that no longer feels the need to respond with aggression towards every perceived threat. For this reason, recruitment programmes for all male workers having direct contact with offenders will seek to recruit people that embody this quality.

A secondary focus at New Deal will be the constant reward by giving attention and credit, for any and every act of obedience and success academically, emotionally or physically. The aim being to show to these valuable young people — many (if not most) of whom have been cruelly, utterly starved of ANY true personal affirmation their entire lives — that it is possible to get attention (and of a kind that builds up in a genuine way on the inside) without the need to misbehave.

Parents of pupils will also be encouraged to participate in programs designed to confront any potential underlying family issues.

Any child wishing to attend New Deal school voluntarily will be allowed to do so — a youngster must NEVER feel they have to offend or re-offend in order to attend.