A no-nonsense head teacher is to quit the country in favour of teaching abroad as she says parents continue to undermine discipline at school.

Ebbsfleet Academy principal Alison Colwell, who once sent several girls home for wearing skirts which were too short, will lead an international school in Majorca, The Sunday Times reports.

Ms Colwell told the paper's education editor Sian Griffiths that there needs to be a clampdown on parents' behaviour.

She said their attitude at home - that of no rules or discipline - was 'dooming their children to failure'.

Ms Colwell, who was once called upon to advise government on tackling classroom disruption, insisted she was not being hounded out by the minority of parents who opposed her zero tolerance approach, but admitted they would probably feel 'gleeful she was leaving'.

She told the broadsheet she had been told one parent at the Swanscombe school had already gloated on social media about finally wearing her down.

The school has worked hard to turn around its poor reputation when it was previously the Swan Valley Community School.

But the code of conduct, which includes a strict uniform policy including a ban on coloured eyebrows, coloured shoe tags, mobile phones and a minimum skirt length, has not sat well with some parents.

Police had been called to remove abusive parents from the premises, she added, and, as a result, some had been banned from attending the 700-pupil school without prior appointments.

"The most badly behaved children came from the most chaotic families," the Sunday Times quotes.

"I once tried to tell a mother she was a bad parent. I got shouted and sworn at even more. It was not a strategy I tried again."

On its website, the Southfleet Road school boasts of improving GCSE results from 24% A*-C (including English and maths) prior to opening to 60% in just four years.

It goes on to state: "Our ambition is to ensure that all students achieve their potential, develop as courteous, confident and capable young people and leave with an education that has fully equipped them to go onto the university or the careers of their choice."

Ofsted rated the school 'good' in 2016 and praised its leadership.

Ms Colwell has called upon Damian Hinds, the education secretary, to introduce new measures for the most aggressive and abusive parents and believes more highly-skilled teachers could leave the profession if the problem is not tackled.

Ms Colwell is expected to back a motion at the conference of the NAHT head teachers’ union this week which calls for a halt to teachers being harassed online.

She added: “Other countries hold teachers in high regard.”

“I care so much about the children here. I care about their life chances and their aspirations, and everything we do is because of that.”

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