DfE withdraws school discipline guidance 'too soon'

The Department for Education (DfE) is consulting on new shortened pupil behaviour and discipline guidance due to be published in July.

But the move to do away with existing guidance before the new regulations are finalised means that schools will have no information to refer to if an incident occurs over the next three months.

Martin Rogers, a policy consultant at the Children’s Services Network, labelled the government’s decision to remove the guidance as "extraordinary".

"There’s nothing even in the consultation document to say that the previous guidance has actually been withdrawn," he said.

"If someone makes a complaint against a teacher between now and July there is no guidance that anyone can fall back on and say, ‘I just did what the guidance said’. I think that could be pretty serious if cases arise during that period and people aren’t happy with the way they’re dealt with."

Rogers added that schools will struggle to write new behaviour policies based on the DfE’s revised behaviour and discipline guidance until half way through the autumn term.

"The DfE have said that the new guidance is going to be out in July so that teachers have time to familiarise themselves with it, but I’m not sure that’s likely over the summer holidays and that doesn’t give governing bodies the chance to draw up a set of principles to guide the head teachers in writing new school behviour policies," he explained.

"It won’t be possible to get these new policies in place until at least part way through the autumn term, and even then they may have to be amended anyway if there are any more changes in the Education Bill."

Part of the reason the government is revising the guidance is to make it easier for teachers to understand. The new guidance is set to be about 50 pages long, compared to 600 pages under the previous administration.

Rogers questioned whether the guidance should be scaled back so much.

"The reality is that it’s very short," he said. "I wouldn’t dispute that its clear but I’m not sure how useful it is because of the amount of information that has disappeared."

A DfE spokesman said: "The old guidance was needlessly lengthy and repetitive and needed changing. The new advice, currently under consultation, is clear and concise and will help teachers maintain discipline in the classroom. This advice, which teachers have asked for, will be ready for use shortly. We trust teachers to use their common sense and experience in the meantime."