Speaking before the education select committee, Charlie Taylor said that the trajectory of behaviour in schools is improving in general, adding that “no-go areas” in schools where teachers “fear to tread” during break times are becoming a thing of the past.
However, Taylor said there is a growing minority of more challenging pupils, and that for the most disruptive pupils, school is not a viable option.
“There is a group of children who show very extreme behaviour – very difficult, challenging, violent behaviour by often quite young children and - I would say possibly there has been an increase in those sorts of children,” he said.
“There is certainly a group of children who need extra interventions, who need more help, who need more support, and for whom the basic standards of just a really well run school are not enough.”
Taylor, who has been appointed as the new chief executive of the Teaching Agency, also told MPs that teachers need better training in order to deal with disruptive behaviour in schools.
“I think in the best colleges and the best school-based providers, everybody takes responsibility for behaviour," he said. “In the ones that are less successful it is because nobody is actually thinking about behaviour.
“Sometimes behaviour just gets pigeon-holed as a one-off lecture at the beginning of the year where someone inside or outside the institution says ‘these are the things you should do’."
Despite this, Taylor said that work to implement recommendations from his report on behaviour earlier this year is going well and meeting no resistance from the Department for Education.
