Cameron threatens benefit cut for truants’ parents

Speaking at one of the newly-opened free schools in Norwich, David Cameron said discipline, rigour and high expectations were needed in schools, but that parents also had to be brought to account.

A social policy review has been set up to explore the impact of cutting benefits of truants’ parents and the prime minister said such tough measures were necessary.

“We need parents to have a real stake in the discipline of their children, to face real consequences if their children continually misbehave,” he said. “We urgently need to restore order and respect in the classroom and I don’t want ideas like this to be off the table.”

The prime minister said that education should create “good citizens” and that parents, as well as teachers, should be held responsible for their children’s behaviour.

Tough on teachers

As part of the drive to restore discipline, teachers will be given new powers to search pupils for mobile phones or cameras and will be able to physically restrain a pupil if they need to.

However Mr Cameron also said he would make it easier to get rid of underperforming teachers. “If it’s a choice between making sure our children get the highest quality teaching or some teachers changing career, I know what I choose,” he said.

“We urgently need to restore order and respect in the classroom” – Prime Minister David Cameron

Mr Cameron said that the coalition had a “passion” for education, and launched a three-step plan of “ramping up standards”, confronting educational failure and changing the structure of the educational market, giving schools greater independence.

All of this would help produce high-calibre graduates, the prime minister said, which would help boost the economy and enable UK graduates to compete in an increasingly competitive global market.

However Christine Blower, general secretary of teaching union, NUT, said: “To impose yet more draconian targets on schools will further stifle the education system in this country. Far from giving schools more freedom it will ensure that we see an increase in teaching to the test.”

Free schools

The speech was made at the Norwich Free School which opened this week, and Mr Cameron again pledged his commitment to free schools, saying they were born out of a belief in the power of schools to change lives.

The flagship programme has been met with opposition from teaching unions and from within the coalition, and some Liberal Democrat MPs voted against Michael Gove’s policy over fears that the schools would prove elitist and socially divisive.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg this week pledged his commitment to ensuring that future free schools would serve deprived communities.

Free schools have more freedom than state schools and are run more like academies, with no obligation to follow the national curriculum and more flexibility on teachers’ pay and conditions. The first 24 free schools opened this month across England.