Ei-iE

EI affiliate the ASTI has welcomed recommendations made by the Task Force on Student Behaviour. Commenting on the actions outlined by the Minister for Education and Science to deal with serious behaviour issues in second level schools, the ASTI General Secretary, John White said: "This is an excellent report which provides the blueprint for the Minister to improve the disciplinary atmosphere in our schools."

Recommendations of the report include:

• An induction programme should become a compulsory component for newly qualified teachers;
• Behaviour support classrooms should be piloted in 30 schools experiencing extreme discipline problems. This should provide a short term “cooling off” period for seriously disruptive pupils, the objective is to re-integrate the students back into the mainstream classrooms;
• New regional Behaviour Support Teams made up of teachers and additional psychologists will work with up to 50 schools that have significant discipline problems. These should be implemented from next September.

"The Report of the Task Force contains a comprehensive set of recommendations which if implemented would improve the well-being of teachers and pupils in our education service. Many of the recommendations will involve additional resources and unless these are provided the problems will remain," concluded White. "School Matters - The Report of the Task Force on Student Behaviour in Second Level Schools 2006" is available for download from the link below.