Lancashire school strike: Teachers walk out over out-of-control pupils

Staff at Darwen Vale comprehensive claim headteacher is not consistent in dealing with bad behaviour

Teachers at a Lancashire comprehensive who walked out over the unruly behaviour of their pupils have threatened one-hour strikes unless their headteacher helps them restore discipline.

Seventy of the 80 staff at Darwen Vale high school did not turn up to take lessons on Thursday, saying students are out of control, pushing them, challenging them to fights, and threatening to film their lessons and post them online.

They claimed the headteacher, Hilary Torpey, and her senior colleagues were not consistent in the way they deal with bad behaviour and undermine staff by returning confiscated mobile phones to pupils.

Torpey, who started in November 2009, said she was disappointed that the teachers felt they needed to go on strike and that the vast majority of pupils behaved well.

She said: "We are in discussions about how we can best resolve this situation so that staff feel well supported."

But Simon Jones, a local National Union of Teachers official who was on the picket line, said that while discussions between Torpey and her staff were proceeding, the matter was unlikely to be resolved until May at the earliest.

"We might have to hold one-hour stoppages before the end of the school day so that we carry on making progress," he said.

Jones said at least 10 pupils should be excluded. "There should have been fairly automatic exclusions given the seriousness of some of the incidents," he said.

"Children have been threatening to carry out physical assaults on teachers and making malicious allegations. We want management to accept that there is a problem and to propose some solutions.

"We want a behaviour policy in place so that if a child misbehaves, there are a series of sanctions that are followed through."

He said that of the 1,150 pupils, about a tenth were causing concern by smoking and skipping lessons and about 60 were making physical or verbal threats.

"These are not inherently bad pupils; the vast majority of the pupils are fine. This is about the management's failure to address the problem."

Nadeem Siddiqui, who has taught history at the school for 10 years, said there had been no consistent approach over the banning of mobile phones.

"This has led to more pupils getting out their phones in lessons," he said. "Poor behaviour has escalated because of management's refusal to acknowledge that there is a problem."

Emma Shaw-Mackay, who has a 12-year-old son at the school, said she supported the walk-out. "The teachers' hands are clearly tied when it comes to enforcing discipline. Students have been filming teachers in class and then putting it up on Facebook, at YouTube, which is unacceptable."

Emma's son, Ethan, said he sometimes felt frightened if students were "yelling at teachers". "It doesn't happen that much, but it happens. Some of the kids just don't care. You can tell they're not afraid at all of the teachers."

Harry Devonport, Blackburn with Darwen council's director of education, said: "We are very disappointed that the matter hasn't been resolved without having to resort to strike action.

"We are working with all the parties to ensure there is ongoing dialogue to clarify exactly what the issues are and what actions can be taken to resolve the situation."

The school is being rebuilt and pupils are temporarily in a building which has a capacity of only 800.

On Monday, Michael Gove, the education secretary, issued new guidance to schools on discipline. It reminded teachers that, in extreme circumstances, headteachers could press criminal charges against pupils.

Some 30 teachers who do not work at the school joined the protest in solidarity.

Gove's gaffes

The debacle over the education maintenance allowance (EMA) continues: first came Gove's U-turn over next year's support of teenagers already in receipt of the EMA. Then came news that funding the U-turn will cost �248m ? far more than the �180m he claimed last week. To add insult to injury, Gove also found himself put on the spot by Boris Johnson over his decision to replace the �564m scheme with bursaries for the 16-18s.

In February, a court found Gove had acted in a way that was "so unfair as to amount to an abuse of power" in cutting the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) scheme. The successful challenge by six councils could lead to a rash of similar claims, lawyers say. In December, Gove was forced to agree a temporary reprieve for England's schools sports system, which he previously pledged to scrap.

Amelia Hill

Jessica Shepherd

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