Early intervention needed for bad behaviour and truancy

3.45.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Thu 15th May 2008

The Assembly Government commissioned National Behaviour and Attendance Review has found that early years intervention is needed to tackle truancy and bad behaviour in schools.

The Report highlights concerns that too many children in Wales are underachieving in Primary and Secondary schools and that these children are more likely to go onto have behavioural and attendance problems. Teaching staff were found to feel inadequately trained to handle these issues. The report suggests that whilst intervention does generally kick in at secondary level this needs to be much earlier, in some cases even as young as 5-year-olds.

Kirsty Williams AM, Welsh Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Education commented: "I welcome the report's calls to tackle bad behaviour from the beginning, this can be done with smaller class sizes, better trained teachers and a more stimulating curriculum. Reducing class sizes from a maximum of 30 to 25 will reduce teacher workloads and give them more time to address individual pupils needs.

"Discipline should not be about punishment - but should focus primarily on creating a teaching environment, which prevents unruly behaviour and bullying from taking place. As the report suggests we need intensive training of teachers to give them the confidence and skills to properly deal with poor behaviour. Persistent disruption should be tackled with a structured approach to encouraging good behaviour, involving local authorities and parents, so that teachers have time to teach and disruptive pupils have their needs addressed.

"Spending on early years support is a real long-term investment, and dramatically reduces the need for more intervention and support in later years. The gains accrued from early years interventions do however fade if not built on and the 'Pupil Premium', which would allow additional funds to 'follow' the most disadvantaged children throughout schools is a strong solution to this.

"Parents must also take responsibility for their children's behaviour and their obligation to ensure they attend school. A community-wide approach to tackling truancy, involving parents, police and local welfare officers will be much more effective than the current top-down measures.

"The Welsh Assembly Government must look at the root causes of truancy and bad behaviour. It has been found that a third of all pupils who play truant do so because they are being bullied, we need to ensure that each school has a trained member of staff to counsel children who are victims of bullying."