Tories would help schools to crack down on bullies

Teachers would be given the power to confiscate mobile phones from pupils under Tory plans to tackle bullying and strengthen discipline in schools.

The proposal follows the rise of the "happy slapping" craze in which teenagers film playground attacks on camera phones, as well as concern over the disruptive influence of mobile phones in the classroom.

The Conservatives are promising to reinforce teachers' authority by making it easier to isolate, and then exclude, troublemakers. The plans, to be published tomorrow, will include a drive to ensure that nearly all children can read by the age of six.

The Tories are also calling for schools' authority to be bolstered by ending the right of pupils' parents to ask an appeal panel to overturn an exclusion.

Headteachers would be allowed to refuse a place to children whose parents refuse to sign "behaviour contracts", under the Tory proposals. Schools would be asked to set up schemes that update parents weekly on their children's conduct - and reward the best- behaved youngsters.

Schools would be encouraged to appoint staff who specialise in combating unruly behaviour, to set aside rooms where troublemakers can be held and to install intercoms enabling teachers to request help with discipline problems.

Michael Gove, the shadow Schools Secretary, said: "Poor pupil behaviour is the most serious problem preventing teachers doing the job they love. Classrooms in which students are disruptive are environments in which no one can learn.

"Teachers have to be given the tools to tackle this issue at root. The balance has to shift back in the classroom, in favour of the teacher."

The Tories have also set out proposals to encourage children to learn to read at an earlier age, arguing that it was the basis of all learning. They would scrap the key stage 1 exam for six and seven-year-olds and replace it with a reading test. Schools would be asked to extend the use of "synthetic phonics", which concentrates on teaching the sounds that make up words.

Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, said there was nothing new in the Tories' "hastily cobbled-together" proposals. He said "synthetic phonics" were already being encouraged by the Government and literacy levels were improving.

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