Core of pupils 'are too unruly', says behaviour tsar

Mr Taylor believes there has been a rise in the number of children with very challenging behaviour

Some pupils in England's schools are too disruptive to fit into regular school life, the government's adviser on behaviour has said.

Former head teacher Charlie Taylor said some children who displayed unruly ways needed much more help and support.

Speaking to a committee of MPs, Mr Taylor said while behaviour in general was improving, there remained groups that persistently misbehaved.

He added there was evidence to suggest these sorts of pupils were increasing.

Mr Taylor told the cross-party education select committee on Wednesday that "the trajectory of behaviour" within schools was improving.

And he said it was now rarer in schools to have "no-go areas where teachers fear to tread at lunch times and break times".

"But I do think there's a group of children who show very extreme behaviour, very difficult, challenging, violent behaviour, often quite young children, and I would say possibly there has been an increase in those sorts of children.

"You can still be a school who is good on behaviour and still have pupils like that within your school because you're doing a good job with them.

"But nevertheless there are certainly a group of children who need extra interventions, who need more help, who need more support and for whom the basic standards of just a really well-run school aren't enough."

Teacher training

Mr Taylor said he feared some training courses were not teaching would-be teachers enough about behavioural issues and how to deal with them.

"Sometimes behaviour gets pigeon-holed as a one-off lecture at the beginning of the year," he said.

Mr Taylor has previously called for disruptive children to be identified before they start school to stop them going "off the rails" later on.

Publishing his report into alternative provision for disruptive children earlier this year, Mr Taylor said that intervening to help naughty children when they are as young as two or three is better than "waiting until they are throwing tables around".

Mr Taylor was formerly head teacher of The Willows, a special school in west London for children with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties.

He has recently been appointed the first chief executive of the Teaching Agency, which will oversee teacher training.