MICHAEL Gove has called for teachers to use traditional punishment methods to clamp down on bad behaviour among pupils such as litter-picking and writing lines. But Simon Kennedy, North-East regional organiser for teaching union NASUWT, says the secretray of state is “dangerously out of touch”.

MICHAEL Gove is masterly at repackaging old ideas, putting his ideological spin on a genuine issue and coming up with a political gimmick solution regardless of the views of the professionals.

Yet again, with his pronouncements on returning to an old-style regime of school discipline, he proves adept at looking for a headline grabbing idea which will play to his right-wing gallery instead of genuinely reflecting the reality of the classroom.

Low-level disciplinary problems are undoubtedly a challenge for teachers. In the NASUWT Big Question survey of 2013, 85 per cent of teachers said they had experienced verbal abuse from a pupil in the last year, and more than one in five had had threats of physical violence made by pupils.

The issue was discussed at last year’s NASUWT annual conference and teachers were clear about where the blame lay - cuts to local authority behaviour support services combined with a narrowing of the curriculum are leading to disaffection and low-level indiscipline among pupils.

The same survey also revealed that more than half of respondents said they were not sufficiently supported by school management in dealing with behaviour problems.

To imagine that they can be tackled and eradicated by handing a broom handle to the offender is fantastical at best and belies a secretary of state dangerously out of touch with the real world.

Pupil indiscipline and behaviour problems are often the result of deep-rooted and complex societal issues. They require a joined-up and sophisticated response that aims at tackling the root causes and not just the symptoms of the issue.

In the school environment at least, a major contributing factor has been the extent to which we have increasingly seen school leaders shunning their responsibility to protect their workforce by rushing to instant judgement on teachers attempting to cope with discipline issues.

Too often we see a knee-jerk reaction and school leaders suspending teachers before fully investigating the problem.

The backdrop to this is the climate of fear triggered by the punitive Ofsted regime and the pressure on school leaders to be seen to be tackling behaviour problems. This gets transferred to the teacher and they feel disempowered and unsupported in the classroom.

It creates a climate where some challenging pupils think they exist in a climate of impunity and led to a rise in unfounded allegations which can lead an indelible blight on a teacher’s career.

What teachers need more than hollow gestures encouraging them to instigate punitive measure against pupils is a robust leadership in schools which enforce existing polices consistently and in a way which supports the teacher.

The Northern Echo: GIVING VIEWS: Simon Kennedy, from thwe NASUWT union

Simon Kennedy

The irony behind these proclamations is that the Coalition took a swingeing axe to initiatives which were proving to be effective tools at helping schools tackle behaviour issues.

Schools used to be able to develop effective behaviour strategies through behaviour and attendance partnerships between schools. But these were shamefully abolished by the Coalition.

Furthermore, essential guidance and support which used to exist for schools was axed from the Department for Education website.

Pupil behaviour problems are far more complex than can be solved with a broom and a piece of chalk.

Which is why the secretary of state’s latest political posturing will evoke a hollow laugh from teachers on the front-line.

Our children and young people deserve more than a man who is insistent on harking back to an era which has long gone and who is crafting an education system in his own ideological image.