Should head-teachers fine deadbeat parents?

Discipline begins at home, says the minister

Our main story on Breakfast this morning was a proposal to give head-teachers new powers to tackle truancy and bad behaviour - by punishing the parents.

The controversial proposals will be outlined in a speech today, by the new Secretary of State for Education, Charles Clarke.

He'll be arguing that "discipline begins at home" - and that parents who can't get their children to school, or who can't get them to behave, should be fined or sent on compulsory parenting courses.

Breakfast asked: is it time to bring in drastic measures to tackle truancy and lack of discipline in schools?

Or will the plans sour the relationship between head-teachers and stressed-out parents?

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At 8.10, we spoke to one boy, Nadeem Hussein, who used to be a persistent truant, until attending a special course run by The Prince's Trust.

click here to watch Breakfast's interview in full with Nadeem Hussein

At 6.10am, we heard from teachers' leader, John Bangs, of the NUT, why teachers' don't want to set Heads against their pupils.

click here to watch Breakfast's interview in full with John Bangs of the National Union of Teachers

Further details from BBC News Online

Head teachers could be given powers to impose fines on the parents of persistent truants.

The plans are expected to be announced by Education Secretary Charles Clarke in a speech in which he will stress that "discipline begins at home".

The controversial proposals follow disappointing truancy figures which showed no improvement in the past year.

Mr Clarke will also say on Thursday that parents of children who play truant or misbehave badly could be required to attend classes to improve their parenting skills

About 50,000 children are thought to miss school every day without permission.

Patricia Amos went to prison over her truanting children

Mr Clarke is set to propose that parents of persistent truants could be issued with fixed penalty notices, similar to parking tickets.

Parents would be given the option of paying the fine within a certain time or appealing against it in court.

The government has not yet decided how much the fine would be.

Ministers are also considering using parenting contracts as another weapon in the fight against truancy.

These would be agreements signed by parents of persistent truants or children who seriously misbehave.

Parents would be told to sign up to parenting classes to improve the way they were bringing up their children.

If they failed to attend the classes, they could face fines or jail.

Jail terms

The government is concerned that spot checks on children not in school revealed many were absent with their parents' consent.

Some were caught out shopping with their parents on days they should have been at school.

Earlier this year Patricia Amos was sentenced to two months in jail because her two teenage daughters played truant from an Oxfordshire school.

Charles Clarke: "Discipline begins at home"

Her sentence was later halved by a Crown Court judge and she was released after two weeks in jail.

It was the first time magistrates had passed such a sentence on parents using powers given to them in November 2000.

Schools have been trying a variety of methods to tackle the problem of truancy.

A school in Greater Manchester which has cut its truancy rates dramatically in the past few years is now offering children with 100% attendance records the chance to win a family holiday worth £2,000.

Jack Pendlebury, the head teacher of Rose Bridge High School in Ince, near Wigan, said: "Rewards and praises have a greater impact in effecting change than sanctions and punitive measures.

"The full range of measures are used to produce improvement, but there is a growing emphasis on recognising the vast majority who attend well and work hard."

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