Classroom discipline could be improved by better work-related education for pupils disaffected from academic lessons, say the Conservatives.

The Shadow Education Secretary Damian Green is set to publish a pamphlet outlining the direction of the party's review of education policy.

And highlighting discipline as a key issue, he is set to avoid the get-tough rhetoric and to suggest that practical alternatives need to be found for non-academic teenagers.

This might see teenagers learning work skills rather than being kept in traditional lessons.

Mr Green, who has been seen as pulling his party back into the centreground, has been critical of political "gimmicks" in tackling bad behaviour and truancy.

'Drift into crime'

"The question ever since we have had state schools has been how to educate the less academic children," says Mr Green.

"The answer is to devote as much energy to providing excellent vocational education as we have done to providing our most academic children with the schooling that suits them.

"We need proper vocational education while the children are still willing to learn. Leaving it too late to engage their interest leaves them prey to the temptations of truancy and the drift into crime."

The discussion pamphlet, Better Learning, also includes proposals that parents should be allowed greater freedom to set up their own schools, echoing the "charter school" movement in the United States.

"We need to explore ways in which parents who are dissatisfied with their local school can exercise some control.

Over-tested

"We need to make it easier for popular schools to expand, and we need to make it easier to set up new schools. This will be a real help in the inner cities for the most vulnerable children."

The pamphlet also suggests that pupils are being over-tested, saying that an 18-year-old might leave school having taken 100 public exams.

Attention will also be paid to what has not been highlighted by Mr Green - and there is little sign of enthusiasm for the "free school" scheme which was the troubled flagship of the party's education policy at the last general election.

Mr Green's pamphlet also repeats his ground-breaking attempts to open a dialogue with teachers and teachers' unions.

And he says that as education secretary, he would "look forward to regular and constructive dialogue with the teaching unions".