Nick Gibb MP: The Education Act will help free teachers from bureaucracy and restore discipline to classrooms

Nick Gibb MP is the Minister of State for Schools.

Too few schools are outstanding – that was the unambiguous picture painted in this week’s Ofsted annual report. Just 20 per cent of English schools currently merit that rating. Too many are becalmed, coasting. But this government will never be satisfied with a “good enough” education system. We are determined to make excellence and high academic standards available to everyone. That is why the Education Act, which received Royal Assent last week, is so important. It embeds two essentials that schools need if they are to deliver the type of education parents want for their children: inspirational teachers freed from tedious, irrelevant bureaucracy, and disciplined classrooms where the teachers, not the pupils, are in control.

Since coming to office, this Government has already created over 1,200 academies where teachers are protected from local authority meddling and have freedom to do things like teach a more demanding curriculum or lengthen the school day. Instead of being forced to accept services provided by inefficient council bureaucracies, they can purchase them from whoever is able to provide the best service at the best price. Headteachers control how they pay their staff. That means they can reward excellence and hard work and ensure they keep their best staff.

Our new Education Act widens the power to create even more academies. Where councils have shown themselves to be incapable of raising standards, the Department now has the authority to force councils to take action and begin the process of handing schools over to those who know how to run good schools, such as the growing number of academy chains. Failing schools are not fair on pupils' life chances and, as a Government, we will not tolerate them.

Nick Gibb MP: We're giving teachers the powers they need to get a grip on unruly classrooms

Nick Gibb MP is Minister for Schools.

Conservatives can be proud of the reforms we are making to schools. We’re expanding academies so that teachers rather than central and local government run schools and the first free schools are opening this September.  We’re ensuring a greater emphasis on rigorous academic subjects and focusing on raising standards of reading in primary schools. But we’re also making progress on another issue parents say they are particularly concerned about: behaviour. Effective teaching needs effective discipline. Teachers need to be able to keep control in the classroom.

Sadly this is not the case in too many schools. The figures speak for themselves. Nearly 1,000 pupils are excluded every day for poor behaviour, abuse or assault. Serious assaults on teachers have reached a five-year high. Over the last decade, 330 teachers had to be rushed to hospital as a result of violent assault. This rising tide of bad behaviour was ignored by Labour and it has taken this government to address it.

We are absolutely determined that teachers should have more powers to enforce discipline. Moreover, they should feel confident in using the powers they already have. Stifled by excessive and unclear guidance, schools have sometimes found it difficult to deal with bad behaviour. ‘No touch’ rules have been adopted by some schools, even though they are not required by law or expected by government. Heads have been reluctant to expel pupils fearing that their decisions will be overturned. And according to one survey, only around half of teachers believe there is appropriate support available in school for teachers struggling to manage pupil behaviour.