AN EAST Lancashire head teachers' spokesman has backed calls to ban pupils who have aggressive or violent parents.

Mr Neil Thornley, North West council member for the National Association of Head Teachers, says most heads are fed up with an increasing deluge of abuse from pupils and their parents.

And he backed his union's call for heads to ban pupils whose parents assault them or become overly aggressive.

"We're trying to raise people's awareness that we have a problem that is growing and growing," he said.

"It's becoming part of the job to deal with people who are extremely aggressive but we are teachers, not police or social workers."

Mr Thornley, head of Fearns High School, Bacup, said most heads had experienced the problem.

Blackburn Queen's Park High School head teacher Sue Hyland said: "I certainly think we should have the right to exclude difficult pupils from school.

"I have excluded pupils for persistent bad behaviour or violence and aggression.

"However, I can't envisage a situation where a parent was causing so much trouble that I would expel the pupil.

"In that case, I think the parents would probably take the child away themselves."

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