Scrap pupil appeals, says report

25 February 2008

The Daily Telegraph, Duncan Gardham

Children thrown out of school for bad behaviour should lose their right to appeal, says a new report.

The study for the Reform think-tank says schools must be given the final say if discipline is to be restored in failing institutions. It lists incidents where parents appealed against the exclusion of pupils who set fire to other children’s hair and walked across the roofs of teachers’ cars.

Richard Tice, the report’s author, is chairman of the Northampton Academy, where truancy has dropped by a third over the past three years.

He recommends that the Government should remove the Independent Appeals Panels, reduce the role of central initiatives such as the National Curriculum and testing, and challenge the “cultural power” of the teaching unions.