PARENTS of children suspended from school will face £50 fines if they allow them to roam the streets.

Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary, said yesterday that the Government would create an offence of “allowing a child to be found in a public place during school hours without good cause” as part of a toughening of disciplinary powers for head teachers.

The announcement came after a report by 13 heads and teachers who also called for action against “happy slapping”, in which gangs use mobile phones to record violence.

Parents will have to ensure that their children are supervised at home for the first five days of any suspension. They will be prosecuted for refusal to pay fixed penalty fines resulting from children being stopped in shopping centres or on the streets.

Ms Kelly said the move would reinforce parental responsibility for excluded children, who too often regarded suspension from school as an extra holiday.

Local authorities and schools would be required to provide for pupils’ education from the sixth day of any exclusion instead of the present 15 days.

The measure was announced yesterday in response to a report by a government working party, led by Sir Alan Steer, head of Seven Kings High School in Ilford, East London, on improving discipline.

On “happy slapping”, the group said that pupils should be discouraged from bringing phones to school, but did not recommend a ban. Instead, schools were told to develop clear rules on phone use and spell out the punishments for pupils who disobey them.

It pointed out that technology was available to block certain functions of phones on school grounds while allowing their use in an emergency.

“We are deeply concerned at some of the negative impacts that mobile phones, including camera phones, are having on school discipline and pupil safety,” the working party said.

“This is not simply a case of ring tones disrupting lessons. Mobile phones are sometimes used to convey inappropriate text messages as a form of bullying and harassment.”

The working party’s concerns were raised on the day a judge sent Kym James, 18, to a young offenders’ institution for 12 months for a “happy slapping” attack.

James head-butted, punched and stamped on Rebecca Swaby, 14, at a fairground in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, last month while 20 youngsters filmed the assault on their phones.

Judge Marten Coates, at Warwick Crown Court, told James that she was a “dangerous individual” with a history of violence. He ordered her to serve an additional two years on licence.

The victim, who suffered two broken teeth, cut lips and bruising, told the court in a statement that the attack had left her frightened to go to school.

Ms Kelly accepted the working group’s key recommendations for improving discipline and promised that action on behaviour would be a “cornerstone” of next week’s Education White Paper.

Teachers will be given a “clear and unambiguous legal right” to discipline unruly pupils and to restrain them using reasonable force.

Schools will have powers to apply to magistrates for parenting orders against parents who refuse to co-operate with teachers in disciplining their children. Heads will be able to impose parenting contracts setting out the terms on which disruptive children can have a last chance to remain at a school before being expelled.

Ms Kelly said: “There is still too much low-level disruption to lessons — backchat, rudeness, calling out in class — that makes teaching and learning more difficult.”

Sir Alan said that good teaching was the key to good behaviour and emphasised that most schools were orderly places. “But we also know that a small minority of unruly pupils can make life very difficult for teachers and do real damage to the learning and attainment of other pupils in a class,” he said.

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT teachers’ union, said: “It emphasises the need for behaviour policies and rules but does not seem to grasp that many of those youngsters who misbehave are well aware of the rules and deliberately flout them.”

Police are investigating a three-minute video shot at Magnus Church of England school in Newark, Nottinghamshire, showing children being punched, kicked and slapped, edited together with titles and musical backing.

The headmaster, Glenn Evans, said that the culprits had been disciplined.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Milk: do we need a dairy godmother?
• DIY: the women doing it for themselves
• First double portrait of Princes unveiled