Enlarge imageLONDON (Reuters) - Secret film of a teacher struggling to control her classroom has thrown school discipline back towards the top of the political agenda just days before the election.
Channel Five will air a documentary on Wednesday night showing a female teacher trying to control swearing school children.
Fights break out, a 13-year-old boy is caught surfing the Internet for pornography and the pupils constantly answer back.
The government’s former chief inspector of schools Chris Woodhead said school discipline had worsened under the Labour government.
"The government has exacerbated the situation by demanding, or at least encouraging in a very forceful way, schools to keep on site children who are simply intolerable," he told Sky News.
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Tim Collins, the Conservative Education spokesman, agreed.
"After eight years of Labour government it’s quite intolerable that our teachers should have to put up with this sort of level of classroom indiscipline," he said.
He said head teachers should be handed more power to expel disruptive pupils.
But finance minister Gordon Brown pushed aside accusations that school discipline had slipped, saying only a small group of pupils caused trouble in schools.
"Nobody can deny that standards in schools are going up," he told Sky News.
The Labour party swept into power eight years ago under the mantra "education, education, education".
The hour-long programme "Classroom Chaos" will be shown on Channel Five on Wednesday night at 8:00 p.m.
