Education Bill

Perhaps I could briefly make two comments on this very difficult issue. First, I hope your Lordships might agree that this highlights the importance of teachers and their development and their need to be highly reflected practitioners—not to get drawn into emotional situations but to have that professional capacity to stand back and be dispassionate. I very much welcome what the Minister is doing to help teachers to reflect on their practice with young people. I spoke with a head teacher of an EBD school recently. He described a particular situation on a school outing. One of the children picked up a piece of glass on the beach, perhaps, and put it in his pocket, and the teacher was told about it by one of the school children and acted very quickly to search the child and take it away. For schools or institutions that deal with high numbers of children with challenging behaviour issues, it might be helpful for teachers to have this discretion. The head teacher’s point was that it was very important for teachers to be able to exercise their discretion and not feel inhibited by too much regulation in the background. I do not have particular experience in that area, but I share it because I heard it recently from a head teacher.