'Send unruly children to boarding schools'

Disruptive pupils could be taken out of class and placed in state boarding schools for a "cooling off" period, Education Secretary Ruth Kelly suggested today.

Ms Kelly said the idea was a "creative" way of dealing with the problem of discipline in the classroom.

She said that if groups of state schools "thought it appropriate, together with their local authority, for a child to be educated at a state boarding school for a while, I don't see why that shouldn't happen."

The move is seen by some educationists as a way of removing unruly children from the bad influence of their parents.

Ms Kelly told the Guardian that the issue of discipline was at the top of her agenda. Underlining Tony Blair's plans to wage war on yobs, she said it was time parents backed teachers when a child was told off or threatened with exclusion from school.

Ms Kelly used the interview to deny reports that she had tried to block the appointment of Downing Street policy aide Andrew Adonis as an education minister.