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Parents have likened Dan Jeffries' new regime at Frome Community College to a 'military base'

A hardline new headteacher has suspended 25 pupils from school - despite only being in the job for a matter of days.

Dan Jeffries, who was appointed as interim principal of Frome Community College in Somerset, has insisted the all suspensions dished out in his first week were justified as he hit out at "persisted disruptions" among students.

But parents have reportedly been left furious, claiming their children had been harshly sanctioned for reasons such as "zipping their bag too loudly" and "looking out of a window".

Speaking to ITV News, Mr Jeffries confirmed that for someone to be suspended for disruptive behaviour, "they'd have to be completely defiant and disrupting us four times, in our policy, before we'd consider it".

One mother whose daughter attends Frome Community College, claimed her child was slapped with a suspension after "nervously laughing".

She said: "She has SEND needs, additional needs and sensory needs. So that was a massive setback for her when she did get suspended.

"She was just nervously laughing because of her surroundings, strange faces... She gets overwhelmed - it's a new school [with] new people."

The mother also claimed to have heard accounts of pupils being suspended for "being a minute late" to their lessons.

She went on to claim that Mr Jeffries' crackdown has had an adverse affect on students' "mental wellbeing", with some feeling the need to "hide in the toilets" out of fear.

She added: "You want your child to feel safe, you want them to learn. You want the same opportunities as every other child, like everyone else's kids that come here.

"That's all we want, we want the kids' needs to be met and not be treated like it's a military base."

The headteacher confirmed he did not issue any suspensions over "uniform or lateness".

All the punishments handed out were for "defiance leading to the disruption of the running of the school", he added.

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"I am there to ensure we are inclusive and that we maintain really high standards," he added.

Despite the backlash from some parents, others have praised the zero-tolerance approach from the new head.

Liz Halliwell said: "He has come in and he is making sure that the rules are being followed."

The parent said that "as long as it's fair and consistent for everybody involved", she is pleased that child be receiving a "more consistent education".

Mr Jeffries said the numbers of suspensions dished out should be taken into context given the size of the student population.

He explained: "We have 1,400 children at the college, we had a total of 20 days' worth of suspensions last week - that's with some children receiving more than one day.

"It wasn't a wide-scale number, it wasn't a particularly large-scale event. It is safe to say a number of children did find returning to school more complicated, and that does happen some Septembers."

The headteacher added: "All children deserve to have interruption-free education and where we have a very small minority of pupils who are disrupting the learning of others, it's important that we support as much as we can, but we don't allow that to affect everyone else's education."