Is the behaviour of second-level students as bad as it is portrayed? asks John Downes. Dr Maeve Martin, chairwoman of the new Task Force on Discipline, explains what needs to be done

To hear the ordinary teacher in the classroom and their union leaders tell it, there is a crisis of discipline in our second-level schools.

Faced with the effects of legislation that frequently forces schools to readmit students who have been suspended or expelled and a more general erosion of authority in schools here, they say the stress this causes is leading some teachers to reach breaking point.

In this context, the recently-established task force on student behaviour in second-level schools was welcomed by many as offering hope that progress would be made on the issue.

Heading up the new task force is Dr Maeve Martin, a psychologist by training and a senior lecturer in the education department at NUI Maynooth.

Martin is hardly a newcomer to the issue of student discipline, having been commissioned by the Department of Education and Science as far back as 1997 to carry out a national report on the state of discipline in our schools. She is also a ministerial nominee on the Section 29 committee, which deals with appeals of expulsion and suspension decisions taken by schools.

The issue of discipline in schools is a hugely important one, she says, affecting the ability of a school to fulfil its function.

"Disruption in the school is not just confined to the school community but is a matter of civic concern or public concern . . . what happens in society is perhaps mirrored in the life of the school because much of the breakdown of civility that is current perhaps in society today is evidenced within the school setting," she says.

"The majority [ of schools] are orderly environments in which students are well-behaved and happy to be there and there is research to show that . . . But a minority of students persistently challenge the predominant order in schools. So this is stressful for all concerned."

One result of the huge changes that have taken place in schools here is that students are encouraged to be both vocal and assertive in engaging in decision-making and to participate fully in the life of the school, says Martin.

"Now the consequence of that maybe is that schools are no longer top down," she says. "One by-product of it is maybe that students are very well versed in their rights as learners and may be less well versed in their responsibilities."

Put another way, in the current educational landscape many of the traditional assumptions - such as automatic respect for anyone in a position of authority simply by virtue of their title - no longer apply.

Moreover, both parents and students are aware of the limited sanctions that schools can impose on students who are persistently disruptive.

So has the rights pendulum swung too far in the one direction?

When schools are being forced to take back students they have previously chosen to exclude, where does this leave the hapless second-level teacher, struggling to teach a classroom where respect is no longer a given?

It is "extremely difficult" for a school to have a student readmitted without the necessary resources, Martin acknowledges - an issue her task force will be examining.

"Schools have thresholds. And they also have responsibilities to the generality of students who are well-behaved. So it may be that in extreme cases they have no option but to seek to exclude a student," she explains.

But some in the education sector believe that certain schools are more concerned with jealously guarding their image by seeking to expel or suspend problem students, than dealing with the often troubled teenager at the centre of the problem.

As the recent enrolment crisis in the Limerick area underlined, some schools also take more than their fair share of students from challenging backgrounds. This allows others to protect and enhance their reputation by "creaming off" the most academically gifted students - and those less likely to create discipline problems, others point out.

For her part, Martin underlines that much of the disruption that causes teachers most difficulty is "low-level" in its nature rather than those "spectacular" acts of violence that tend to get media coverage.

"What really bothers teachers is the daily grind-down of persistent low levels of disruption, such as apathy, general disengagement, blatant ignoring of teacher instructions, not coming to school with the relevant kit, or copybook, making noises, fiddling with stuff," says Martin. "They're minor in themselves, any one of them is a minor breach. But it is the cumulation of those on a daily basis over a long period of time that is very demoralising for the teaching force."

In order to address this, schools need to have a number of key characteristics, she believes. These include having a strong leadership team which closely supports staff through the consistent implementation of the school's code of behaviour. This helps avoid the feeling among individual teachers that while they may be implementing this code to the letter, their colleague in the next room may not be.

Other important elements include the development of good partnerships with parents or guardians, the provision of a wide variety of extra-curricular activities to engage the interests of students and an attractive school environment to give learners a sense of pride in being there.

But underpinning all of that is creative teaching and quality teaching, coupled with an appropriate curriculum, says Martin.

"It is a critical factor that the teacher has to be a very engaging person to capture the interest of the students who are living very exotic out-of-school lives," she explains. "Unless you can grab their interest via the lesson and via your teaching then indiscipline will set in. Because students are bored."

Martin's task force is due to make an initial report to Minister for Education Mary Hanafin in the summer and to make final recommendations by the end of the year.

Ultimately, however, the real litmus-test of its success may be through the amount of resources it secures to ensure its recommendations are implemented.

While no one would doubt Martin's commitment, others point out that we have had recommendations on discipline before, which have done little to address the problem. They point out that unless you provide the necessary resources to cater for the specific needs of a student who has been readmitted to a school following a period of exclusion, then you are often simply repeating the same problem.