TWO trial schemes will be launched in the region to tackle bad behaviour and underachievement in schools, the Government announced yesterday.

Headteachers in North Yorkshire and Redcar and Cleveland will be required to take responsibility for the pupils they expel, to ensure they still receive a full-time education.

At present, that requirement rests with the local authority, but ministers fear too many excluded pupils are being condemned to a future of failure.

Meanwhile, thousands of people in Middlesbrough will be offered free parenting classes to help them improve their children’s behaviour, by learning better communication and listening skills.

The town is one of three areas where all parents of youngsters aged five and under will be given £100 vouchers to also learn how to “manage conflict”

and understand the importance of boundaries and routines to children.

The scheme follows a report, commissioned by David Cameron, which warned that good parenting was more important than income or schooling to a child’s life chances.

Former Labour minister Frank Field has since criticised the Prime Minister for shelving his study, allowing local authority spending cuts to “scupper the life chances” of poor children.

Announcing the North Yorkshire and Redcar trial, education minister Nick Gibb said it was vital to ensure that exclusion did not lead those children to abandon education.

Most expelled pupils are sent to pupil referral units, or placed with another organisation to improve their behaviour – but only 1.4 per cent go on to achieve five good GCSEs, including maths and English.

Now those pupils will remain on the books of the schools excluding them, which means any future truanting will count as a bad mark against that school.

Mr Gibb said: “Many of these children are the most vulnerable in society and we need to ensure that, despite being expelled from school, they continue to receive a good quality education, albeit in an alternative setting.”

But Brian Lightman, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said it had “significant concerns” that the change would make it harder for schools to expel pupils.

Announcing the Middlesbrough trial, Sarah Teather, Liberal Democrat children’s minister, said she was determined to “get rid of the stigma”

attached to parents asking for help.

She said: “Parenting classes aren’t just for struggling families with complex problems.

All parents should know it’s ok to ask for extra support and guidance when they need it – just as most do when they attend ante-natal classes before their child is born.”

Actress Helena Bonham Carter has told of seeking help to become a better mother to her two children, saying: “I’m taking parenting classes. No one ever taught me what to do.

It’s much harder than being an actress.”