Category Archives: exclusions

What should we do about children not in school?

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Is it time to start looking for a new solution to the issues surrounding children not in school? Currently too many young people are missing school for a variety of different reasons.

How about a ‘virtual school’ for all children not on a ‘normal’ school roll? The Local Authority where they live would assume responsibility on day one for any child without a school place, whether the child has moved into an area, and there is no mid-year SEND place available, (or other school places) or the young person has been excluded by a school, and has not yet been assigned another school.

Then there are those for who the normal school environment is not longer suitable. They should have a clearly defined place within the education system, managed by the local authority. Only in exceptional cases should responsibility for education be ceded to those parents that ask the state to educate their children.

Many young people might remain on the roll of the virtual school for a short-period of time. However, it would ensure no child for whom the state had assumed responsibility went missing from schooling.

Using the expertise gathered from the established model of virtual schools for children in care together with the work of hospital schools and services should ensure that a body of expertise would quickly develop to ensure all young people, whatever their challenges, had a programme of schooling mapped out for them, even if it didn’t look like the established regime of the traditional school day. However, there would be an expectation of regular contact between the virtual school and the pupil, with individual timetables of learning controlled through the school.

With a pupil being on a school roll at all times, parents would know that their children were part of a framework that includes inspection and has the child at its centre, and also removes the sense of isolation many children not in school can experience. The provision of a virtual school should also reduce the need for the use of section 61 of The Children and Families Act 2014.

The ‘virtual school’ would be able to commission ‘alternative provision’ from registered providers and in some cases be able to transfer the pupil to the roll of the alternative provider, where that was appropriate.

Many pupils in the care of the new virtual school would have special educational needs, as do many children that are the responsibility of the current virtual schools for young people in care. I believe that the notion of a ‘school’ is the best way to educate such children. The virtual school would work with both the SEND sector and the NHS, but be clear what is education and what is therapy, and the responsibility of the NHS.

The present funding model for SEND doesn’t work, and leaves many local authorities underfunded, and a small number of pupils costing significant amounts, while not being on the roll of any school. A virtual school should bring in-house many of the costs currently charged by the private sector for tutoring and other learning and allow some economies of scale to be developed. But, better education for every pupil must be the main aim: no child should be left out of schooling for a single day.

Reducing exclusions from schools

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Reading the Youth Justice Board Bulletin this week alerted me to a new publication about a piece of research into exclusions by schools led by the University of Oxford. Equity-by-Design_Excluded-Lives.pdf  The report contains the following in its conclusion

‘Addressing inequality in education requires a radical rethink that shifts the focus from accountability on school academic performance to accountability for the inclusion and wellbeing of the child in balance with achievement and attainment. We believe that ‘Equity by Design: Our Children, Our Responsibility’ contributes to this essential process’. (page 8)

The report also notes that ‘The challenge for schools in England and the current Labour government in its policy development is how to address issues of equity and inclusion in schools in a period of multiple pressures on school leaders and staff, their pupils, and available resources. These pressures are reflected in high and rising levels of exclusion that disproportionately affect vulnerable and marginalised children and their communities.’

All worthy stuff, but the lack of a focus on staffing in schools, especially in view of the interactions with adults being the most common reasons for an exclusion was a bit of a surprise to me.

‘Training from Initial Teacher Education/Initial Teacher Training to the National Professional Qualification for Headship should address inclusive and relational practice and its implications for teaching and learning, behaviour policies, and pastoral care, as relevant to the context, role, and stage of professional development of staff.’

I found their conclusions on staffing wordier that useful. I hope they meant that all staff need to be trained to be aware of circumstances that might escalate into an exclusion, and that training should be tailored to the circumstances of the school. It is important for schools to identify what percentage of exclusions result from interactions with non-teaching staff that don’t seem to rate a mention in the report.

Still, the support in the report for a collaborative approach that involved local authorities did cheer me up.

‘Local area collaborative infrastructure models.

In order to tackle what we identified as the somewhat fragmented middle tier, policy development should encourage and enable trusts, schools, AP, FE, LAs, Local Inclusion Boards, and Family Hubs to form local partnership ‘Inclusion Groups’ based on collaborative working and the sharing of learning with joint accountability for decisions.

The remit of these ‘Inclusion Groups’ would be to collaboratively identify local needs and to reconfigure where responsibilities should lie to address and meet these needs. By doing so they will be able to determine provision for individuals and decide on the overall approach and its implementation.

These Inclusion Groups should enable LAs to support and challenge schools/trusts as well as empower headteachers and other partners to request action. They should also develop family hubs and other co-location models and work with local communities and third sector partners. Their work should Reviews’ and they should report back to partners annually. Additionally, the role of education should be strengthened in local multi-agency safeguarding arrangements and partnerships.’

However, I am worried about the funding for such inclusion groups and who is to take responsibility for them in the fractured world of education that exists at the present time.

With exclusions at around their highest levels for two decades, there is clearly an issue to be tackled. Personally, I think the curriculum is the best place to start. Reviewing the Key Stage 4 offering so that it provides a relevant for all pupils and not just for those aiming to stay on at school into Key Stage 5 would be a good place to begin any changes. However, we may not have the teachers to offer any radically different curriculum at the present time.