Blog: About time – that will be the reaction of many people to Government moves to improve discipline in the classroom, writes Education Correspondent Dave Morris.

Under proposed measures teachers will be able to search children for a variety of items such as mobile phones, cigarettes and porn, and punish those who misbehave with immediate detention.

Guidance is being given to schools, permitting teachers to physically remove disruptive pupils from the classroom or confine them to a room.

It all sounds like a return to the “good old days” of education, but I have difficulty remembering many “good” days, particularly when I think back to my time in primary school and a head who could mete out violent slaps to the face or punch to the arm just because an arithmetic question was answered incorrectly.

The same thing was happening all over the country but most parents had no idea of what was going on.

At senior school in the early 1960s the situation was better but there were still enough members of the old guard about to make you fearful.

And yet, strangely enough, I eventually became an education correspondent!

Today, I like to think, such people stand little or no chance of getting into the teaching profession and if they do, then there are enough checks and balances to expose them.

But today there is also a widespread feeling that the balance of power rests with the pupils and it is teachers who are fearful – fearful of being assaulted, fearful of damaging false allegations being made against them if they try to impose discipline.

I have to say that in many visits I have made to schools across Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin, I have always found pupils to be courteous and polite.

Talking with many heads and those on the “chalkface” over the years, the issue of bad behaviour has rarely been touched on, even in private conversations.

And I also recall last December, a Shropshire Council report which revealed that the number of pupils permanently expelled from its schools was the lowest for 10 years.

I’m told by Dorothy Elliott, the authority’s inclusion officer, that both permanent and fixed term exclusions in its schools remain low in comparison to national figures.

Will the Government’s action to put teachers “back in control of the classroom” improve things where there is a problem with unruly pupils, or will it in fact place staff at greater risk if they attempt to take firmer action? I’m not sure.

But dare I suggest that perhaps efforts should first be directed to educating parents about the importance of respect, discipline and good behaviour.