THE behaviour of parents is getting worse at a time when unruly children are beginning to improve, a head teachers' leader was warning in York today.

Tougher criminal penalties may be needed to deal with the mothers and fathers who failed to deal with their "out of control children", David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) was saying.

The Government's campaign to improve children's behaviour was "beginning to pay dividends", but Mr Hart was declaring that ministers still had "no answer" to the impact of violent parents on school communities.

At the NAHT's annual conference at The Barbican, he was urging police and local education authorities to crack down by making more use of the powers they already had.

Tomorrow, the third week-long national truancy sweep will see police and education welfare officers patrolling town centres and shopping districts looking for children who should be in school.

Truancy levels have stayed largely constant, despite repeated attempts to do something about the problem.

Many of the children are found in the company of an adult, often a parent.

Mr Hart was to say: "As pupil behaviour starts to improve, parental behaviour deteriorates.

"More sanctions for condoned truancy, more severe criminal penalties for failure to deal with out-of-control children could be the way forward.

"But heads might be more impressed if the existing criminal law was enforced with more vigour by both local authorities and police.

"Failure by LEAs and chief constables to use the full range of sanctions available to them only serves to undermine the authority of heads.

"Telling heads they have no right to exclude, when the parents have no intention of maintaining the semblance of a decent relationship with the school, is absolutely not the answer to heads who have real concerns and real responsibilities for the health and safety of their school communities."

Mr Hart was also stepping up the pressure on the Government to abolish tests, exam result targets and league tables, which has been a major concern of this year's teacher union conferences.

His demand followed yesterday's unanimous vote in favour of abolition at the conference.

Updated: 10:13 Monday, May 05, 2003