'Discipline, kindness, hard work' (From Witney Gazette)

'Discipline, kindness, hard work'

1:45pm Friday 3rd August 2007 in Witney

WITNEY MP David Cameron has praised a West Oxfordshire youth organisation for helping 'tough kids' get back on track.

The Conservative leader, in a speech on school discipline this week, named Witney-based charity Base 33 as one of a number of groups which helped young people using 'a mixture of discipline and kindness and hard work'.

Mr Cameron said good discipline was the key to successful schools, and described Base 33, in Welch Way, as an 'extraordinary' project.

Run by youth workers and volunteers, Base 33 targets young people who have either been permanently excluded or are on the verge of exclusion from secondary school. It supports 12 pupils at a time with teaching staff, youth workers, fitness instructors, and music teachers to help them continue their education.

It also offers drop-in centres, drugs advice, and organises football matches.

Base 33 youth community worker, Mark Bennett, said: "Instead of having them running around on the streets, we keep them in school and on track."

Mr Cameron, in his speech on school discipline, pledged to scrap local authority appeals panels, which can overrule schools which exclude badly-behaved pupils, saying it undermined the authority of headteachers.

He also said schools should have an enforceable good behaviour contract and excluded pupils should be dealt with by voluntary sector groups - not pupil referral units (PRUs).

Speaking about Base 33, he said: "The people who work there have a vocation not just to educate, but to bring up the kids they're trusted with. They provide holistic, personal care.

"These projects are community-based and entrepreneurial and flexible. Many challenge children with new skills and experiences - working with animals or on conservation projects, for instance. And almost all have a better record than PRUs.

"I would like to see independent providers . . . have a right to supply education to children excluded from school."

Mr Cameron, stressing the importance of discipline in creating an environment for learning, said that schools should once again be places 'where the kids respect - and even fear - the teachers, not the other way round."

The Tory leader said he wanted home-school contracts to become enforceable requirements for admission and grounds for exclusion, allowing headteachers to throw out children if they or their parents breach them.

He said teachers should be given the right to anonymity if a child made an allegation of abuse against them, until the case had been concluded.