Unruly pupils plan 'wicked'

Head teachers "swap" pupils who have been thrown out and are reluctant to issue suspensions under pressure to keep their exclusion figures low, according to Susan Jones, a local officer of the NAS/UWT teachers' union.

Miss Jones, from Derby, described how one child was reinstated to a school on appeal earlier this year after being expelled for trying to hit a teacher with a tree branch.

Speaking at the union's annual conference in Birmingham, she said: "This student had gone to hit a teacher with a branch of a tree. The student only failed because several other students called the teacher because they could see what was going to happen.

"Other students realise that what is going on is unacceptable. This incident is still with the police. The students who saw it happen are the witnesses rather than the member of staff involved.

"The student had been excluded by the head, but was then returned to the school by the governors."

Miss Jones is proposing a key motion to be debated at the NAS/UWT conference that calls on the union's executive to "authorise disputes in schools, including the use of strike action," which have unsolved behaviour problems.

Miss Jones condemned the practice - backed by Mr Balls at the conference on Wednesday - of making sure all schools take their share of unruly pupils.

Every school has one member of senior staff who attends a meeting to allocate expelled pupils, she said.

"They put children into the centre of a table and then swap them: 'We will give you our naughty children and take yours in exchange.' From our point of view as teachers, it is a wicked practice."