Page 21
Temporary Solutions, Permanent Decisions: School Exclusions
Words Faith Wilcox
With school exclusions at their highest in over a decade, what are we doing wrong?
In January 2019, when the school census went live, 16,134 pupils were being educated in alternative provisions. Only 1% of pupils who complete their GCSEs in alternative provisions leave with 5 GCSEs, compared to the national average of 64.5%. Surely, the remedy for these pupils is not exclusion?
Picture it: before setting foot into a classroom, there are statistics that say you are more likely to be excluded for just being you! As a young person, if you are constantly told that you are ‘problematic’ or your behaviour is ‘unmanageable’, eventually you are ostracised from the classroom through the exclusion process.
Children with SEN (Special Educational Needs) without an ECHP (Education Health and Care Plan) are four times more likely to be excluded from school in comparison to students without SEN. Although, there are so many other groups that are disproportionately at risk of exclusion such as black Caribbean boys and children from the Gypsy and Roma communities,’ public efforts have endeavoured to address this issue. However, children with SEN are often labelled as ‘disruptive’ and difficult to manage when placed in mainstream settings. Children as young as seven years old are being excluded from school for these reasons. The call for compassionate education is now! We cannot afford to keep losing bright young minds to the prison pipeline.
Exclusions come in different forms, internal, fixed term, and permanent exclusions. All these forms of exclusion have different consequences to a child’s education, conclusively all of them affect a child’s progress throughout their education.
‘No Persons Shall be Denied a Right To An Education’ The Human Rights Act (First Protocol, Article 2).’
Exclusions are temporary solutions that do not address the root cause of one’s issues whether behavioural or SEN. Children that experience exclusion are often disregarded and labelled as hopeless. Often, exclusions prove to be more detrimental; students remain on the school roll without engagement within the classroom, whether that is through isolation or fixed term exclusions. This is harmful as there is a lack of safeguarding measures for long- term plans for these young people, hence the exclusion to the prison pipeline.
Working with various families, safeguarding is viewed as an issue that resides within the home. However, taking the contextual (environmental) safeguarding approach, many children that are victims of exclusion are just in need of support that is focused on overcoming their challenges to learning. Particularly for students with ASD who struggle to remain focused, alternative solutions need to be provided. Ensuring maximum potential of each pupil is the responsibility of educators, as there is a lack of understanding of different SEN challenges and skilled interventions to work with these students.
Aside from mainstream schooling, PRU’s (Pupil Referral Units) should not be classified as hopeless. The smaller classroom setting enables teachers to support children on a 1:1 basis and focus on their needs. They are able to deliver compassionate education - this should be applied across the board. It cannot be the sole responsibility of educational providers. The government budget directly affects state funded schools and alternative provisions. Recent budget cuts have resulted in various schools ‘buying’ into services which provide mental health and wellbeing or mentoring services. The struggle for many schools is they simply cannot afford to pay for those services.
The future of education for many of these pupils relies on early intervention services such as non-statutory teams and qualified social workers. Namely, Early Help, although these interventions may be short lived, they tend to make a difference in the right direction, working holistically with various agencies, the students, and families. This places context to the ‘aggressive, behavioural’ issues that have or may lead to exclusion for the student. As a result, establishing a plan to tackle the root causes of behaviour or SEN of the student.
This year, the Scottish government has ensured that young people’s voices are heard by incorporating the UN Convention Rights of a Child, this gives the opportunity for young people to sit beside MPs in cabinet to discuss issues such as school exclusion, that directly affect so many of their young people. Although this is progress in the right direction, this needs to be widespread across the rest of the UK. Exclusion cannot be the answer to the thousands of pupils at risk, rather early interventions and continuous support will ensure that students have a fairer chance at educational attainment.