Schools behaving badly

Behaviour in schools is far worse than official estimates indicate, research suggests.

A survey of 243 trainee teachers to be presented to the British Education Research Association conference in Manchester this morning, reveals that one in four said less than half the lessons they had at school were "under the relaxed comfortable charge of the teacher".

The research, carried out by the University of East Anglia over a 10-year period and covering lessons they participated in as a trainee teacher and as a pupil, paints a stark contrast to that of official government inquiries and in inspections by the schools watchdog.

In Ofsted reports, 99.7 per cent of schools have been described as having behaviour that was "satisfactory".

Yet one teacher told trainees: "I'm very experienced … but I'm finding it really difficult to cope with the number of pupils who are really serious offenders who are off the scale in terms of their behaviour."