KELLY GIVES BACKING TO DRUG TESTS IN SCHOOLS

Teachers Urge Get-Tough On Pupils' Misbehaviour

Random drug testing in schools was given the personal backing of
Education Secretary Ruth Kelly yesterday as teachers called for
tougher action on bad classroom behaviour.

Teachers at the NASUWT annual conference attacked independent appeals
panels for sending children back to the schools where they had
assaulted teachers.

In one incident, a pupil was excluded for throwing a rugby ball at a
teacher's head. The youngster was allowed back into school and days
later another pupil carried out a copycat attack.

Another teacher described a disgusting craze called "seagulling" where
bodily fluids are collected and then smeared on a victim.

Ms Kelly told delegates schools faced new challenges on top of typical
bad behaviour including "cyber bullying" - the use of mobile phones
and the internet to get at other pupils - and drug abuse.

Asked at the conference what the Government would do to keep schools
as "places of safety", Ms Kelly pointed to the random drug tests
administered at Abbey School in Kent.

She said the school had found it "a hugely effective way of creating
peer pressure against taking drugs in the school environment".

Wickersley School, in Rotherham, has trialled the use of sniffer dogs
searching pupils as they board school buses but the Kent school is one
of the few to embrace the idea of random searches on school grounds.

Ms Kelly's comments were given a cautious welcome by the union which
said it was not opposed to testing but insisted teachers should not be
directly involved.

Paul Desgranges, NASUWT executive member for South Yorkshire, said:
"Drugs in school are a real issue.

Careful steps have to be taken to create an environment safe for
teaching and learning.

"I think parents would be horrified if their child was in a classroom
where other children are under the influence of drugs that could
influence their behaviour."

The NASUWT yesterday called for all local authorities to provide
properly-funded "pupil referral units" where problem children could be
sent. Delegates told the Birmingham conference that some headteachers
were reluctant to exclude violent pupils as they were worried there
was nowhere for them to go.

Teachers also expressed concern that the policy of inclusion -
encouraging more children with special needs to be taught in
mainstream schools - was putting staff under pressure.

Earlier this year, the union in Sheffield published the results of a
survey of teachers' experiences from a single day in the autumn term.

On that one day, 34 teachers claimed to have been been assaulted and
97 attacks by pupils on each other were witnessed.

Ms Kelly said evidence from schools watchdog Ofsted was that behaviour
was improving.As delegates laughed, she admitted it only took a few
pupils "to make life a misery" and the Government had to do something
about it.

Ministers have promised a new legal right to discipline in the new
Education Bill as well as the right to confiscate items like MP3
players and mobile phones.