PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release: 7 July 2010

Coalition Government threatens to turn teachers into prison officers

The Children’s Rights Alliance for England (CRAE) strongly opposes today's (7 July) announcement that schools will be given extensive new powers to search children without their consent.

Head teachers, as well as authorised members of school staff already have powers in law to search a child or their possessions without their consent for weapons, drugs, alcohol or stolen property. Schools can already require children of any age to remove outer clothes, and the law has been changed so teachers have no liability if children's possessions are lost or damaged after they have been confiscated. CRAE's national co-ordinator, Carolyne Willow, says:

The coalition Government has presented itself as a defender of civil liberties, yet here we have a proposal which almost certainly breaches children's rights to privacy under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Imagine if hospitals or public libraries had similar powers to search citizens without our consent – there would be a national uproar.

New regulations will include powers to search for personal electronic devices (including mobile phones, and personal music players), pornography, fireworks, cigarettes and other tobacco and ‘legal highs’. In the forthcoming Education Bill, the Government intends to give teachers a broad search power to cover any item “which may cause disorder or pose a threat to safety”. The Joint Committee on Human Rights opposed similar proposals last year, because of concerns about the disproportionate interference with children's privacy rights.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights also expressed concerns that the Government did not provide specific evidence to justify the extension of search powers to drugs, alcohol and stolen property. The Schools Minister, Nick Gibb, has today cited Ofsted research on student behaviour, yet the organisation's latest annual report states that students' behaviour is good or outstanding in 80% of secondary schools.

Carolyne Willow adds:

Do we really want security measures imposed in prisons and airports to be part of the daily school routine? Teachers are not prison officers and they should strongly reject these new powers as an insult to their profession.  

Nick Gibb also announced that new guidance would make it clearer where teachers can use force to remove children from classrooms. CRAE gave detailed advice on the previous guidance, issued in April this year, seeking to ensure teachers and other school staff work within the Human Rights Act and criminal law.  We remain deeply concerned that successive School Ministers place so much emphasis on teacher force and disciplinary measures when research repeatedly shows that thriving schools are those in which children and young people feel respected, stimulated and engaged. 

More details

Carolyne Willow, CRAE National co-ordinator

Mobile 07949 434 787

ENDS