Project summaries
"Much more might be done, by both schools and LEAs, to avoid exclusion. The evidence of this survey suggested that schools’ use of exclusion was occasionally draconian, without being effective. For many children who are permanently excluded, the chances of re-entering mainstream education are remote and the alternatives are, in the present state of provision, too often expensive and inadequate. Some schools are well aware of this and work hard to retain even the most difficult pupils. That work is of fundamental importance, since no democratic society can afford to write off thousands of young people." OFSTED, 1996.
Bad behaviour and violence are clearly unacceptable, inside or outside the classroom. However, exclusions from school have an impact that goes far beyond the individual school: they affect local businesses, the police, victims of crime, social services and the wider community. They also have a heavy impact on the excluded child, who often leaves school with little chance of re-entering mainstream education or training.
In essence, the issue of exclusion from school can be seen as a matter of equality of opportunity. Do we define it as giving everybody just one bite of the cherry? If you fail at your first attempt in mainstream education should society then give up on you? Or do we see equality of opportunity as more than ‘a single chance to get your foot on a narrow ladder’? Implementing the ideal of ongoing equality of opportunity means tackling the rising tide of exclusions from school.
Only 12,476 children (0.17% of the total school population) were excluded in 1995/6. While by no means homogenous, this small group of children do share certain characteristics. An excluded child is likely to be a teenage boy. 83% of excluded children are male and over two-thirds of them are aged between 13 and 16.
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Like the wider school population, most excluded children are White. However, as our first contributor, David Gillborn, makes clear, Black children are heavily over-represented in the exclusion statistics, being nearly 3 times more likely than the average to be excluded from school. This rises to 5 times more likely for Black Caribbean children. Gillborn calculates that nearly 1,000 extra Black children are excluded who would otherwise remain in school if Black pupils were excluded at the same rate as their White and Asian peers. |
Myth. Exclusions are ‘colour blind’ Fact. Black children are disproportionately affected by exclusions. Black children are often excluded for different reasons than their White peers. See page 14. Source. Exclusions from Secondary Schools 1995/6, OFSTED, 1996. |
What is also clear is that pupils with statements of special educational need (SEN) are seven times more likely to be excluded (0.98%) than children without statements (0.14%).
Large numbers of exclusions are not the norm - in 1995/6 a quarter of all schools excluded no children. A further quarter of schools only excluded one pupil.
As can be seen from the chart below, a large proportion of all exclusions were concentrated in a small number of schools. The top hundred excluding schools excluded 1450 pupils. 45 schools excluded 15 pupils each, with one school excluding 23 in the year. Almost two thirds of all permanent exclusions at secondary school level occurred in just one quarter of schools.
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Reasons for permanent exclusions range from acts of extreme violence to comparatively minor misbehaviour. The OFSTED special inspection into exclusions highlighted causes such as constant soiling, verbal abuse, violence towards teachers, non-teaching staff and other pupils, damaging school property and possession of cannabis. |
Myth. Most permanent exclusions are for classroom violence. Fact. Physical aggression and bullying led to just over one in four permanent exclusions in 1991/2. See page 16. Source. Exclusions: A Discussion Document, Department for Education, 1992. |
What is apparent, however, is that the media myth, that all pupils are excluded for acts of violence, is far from the truth. Only one in four permanent exclusions result from acts of aggression or bullying. A 1992 Department for Education report concluded that "disobedience in various forms - constantly refusing to comply with school rules, verbal abuse or insolence to teachers - was the major reason for exclusion".
Why is exclusion from school so important? After all, as Parsons makes clear, this is a very small group of pupils. The vast majority of pupils are not excluded, and some believe that the ‘silent majority’ of parents support exclusion.
Exclusion is an important issue for two reasons: the link between exclusion from school and crime, and the costs to public agencies and wider society.
Considering costs first: Carl Parsons estimates that the total cost of excluding children from schools in England in 1996/7 is £81 million. This includes costs to health services, social services and the criminal justice system. He calculates that average educational cost of excluding a child is £4,300, while the mean cost to other services in 1994/5 was nearly £1,200. The additional cost of maintaining a child in school who otherwise would be at risk of exclusion is calculated to be £2,800.
There are other costs too, which are far harder to calculate. A significant minority of excluded young people are involved in crime. Parsons has calculated the cost to the police service but the costs to the wider community are also likely to be significant. David Gilbertson provides data from the Metropolitan Police which shows that nearly half of all offences of theft and handling committed by juveniles are committed during school hours. Gilbertson’s view is that "there is a direct and palpable link between exclusion, truanting and crime."
This view is supported by the Audit Commission’s survey of young offenders, which found that 42% had been excluded from school. A further 23% ‘truanted significantly’. The link between exclusion and crime has also been borne out in Home Office research, whose survey of self reported offending found that almost all boys and nearly two-thirds of girls excluded from school admitted some type of offence. While there is no proven causal link between exclusion from school and crime, it is reasonable to suppose that being in an unstructured environment increases the likelihood of offending.
Why is exclusion from school so important when they are such a small minority of the total school population? The answer for the Metropolitan Police is that young offenders who have been excluded have a large impact on volume crime. Some offenders can commit up to 50 offences before they are arrested and enter the official statistics.
The fact that of all English secondary schools, half excluded one or no pupils in 1995/6 shows that most schools and their head teachers take the decision to exclude seriously and with reluctance. This is in line with the guidelines that "permanent exclusion should be used as a last resort, when all other reasonable steps have been taken, and when allowing the pupil to remain in school would be seriously detrimental to the education or welfare of the pupil or of others". But in a sizeable minority of schools, large numbers of exclusions are far from a rarity. What needs to be done to reduce exclusions generally, and in high excluding schools in particular?
The answer may lie within the working practices of low excluding schools. This involves drawing out the best practice from schools with good disciplinary policies and records of low exclusion. This can be done, as Audrey Osler demonstrates, by turning around the question - ‘what are the characteristics of a high excluding school?’ to ‘what are the qualities of a successful, low-excluding school?’
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Osler states that head teachers have a clear leadership role to play in fostering an ethos of inclusion and in ensuring that discipline policy is appropriate, fair and consistent. She also points to the successful experience of mentoring in Birmingham schools by KWESI, an African-Caribbean community group. More generally, she stresses importance of equal opportunities training and the early identification of special educational needs. The low excluding schools in her study were also schools with an element of pupil involvement, whether through school councils or peer group counselling. |
Myth. Schools with high exclusion rates have good disciplinary policies. Fact. "Schools which exclude few pupils tend to be better than those which exclude many at managing behaviour." OFSTED. See page 49. Source. Exclusions from Secondary Schools 1995/6, OFSTED, 1996. Page 6. |
It may also be possible to use the experience of Birmingham, where there is a ‘family group’ of Roman Catholic schools who negotiate with each other to exchange excluded children. Family groups could be formed within LEAs, or within inter-LEA forums.
There is also a clear role for LEAs, not least in feeding information back to schools and placing this information in context. As Osler discusses, many schools were unaware of the ethnic disparities in their exclusion rates until they were pointed out to them.
Perhaps, however, the spread of best practice may not be enough when other powerful factors point towards excluding a child. There would still be pressure from parents of other children to exclude troublesome children, and the inter-school competition and league tables which Gillborn discusses would still form the backdrop to any decision to exclude.
What options are there for changing the institutional environment in which schools make their decisions?
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One possibility, suggested by Gillborn, is a system of ‘fair dealing’. If a school excludes a pupil then they should incur a duty to take in another pupil excluded by another school. This would allow exclusion to continue in cases where the relationship between the child and school has irretrievably broken down, but keeps children within mainstream education. The prospect of having to receive another child excluded from another school, may discourage schools from excluding pupils. The school would have more knowledge about the child they were excluding than the pupil they were taking in. They may prefer not to take in an ‘unknown quantity’. |
Myth. Excluded children usually move to another school. Fact. Only 15% of children permanently excluded re-enter mainstream education. See p 17. Source. Misspent Youth, Audit Commission, 1996. |
An alternative option, that of financial incentives for schools not to exclude, is raised by Audrey Osler. The Age Weighted Pupil Unit, the portion of education funding which follows a pupil, is often below the cost of retaining pupils at risk of exclusion - even when augmented by a statement of special educational needs. There is therefore currently a financial incentive for schools to exclude. The government has floated the idea of excluding schools carrying the cost of educating pupils. In his written submission to the Social Exclusion Unit, Martin Stephenson, the Chief Executive of Include, has stated that "incentives will be important, and the development of an out of school weighted unit should be considered."
OFSTED has complained that "too many decisions are made by heads under pressure and in isolation, though governors often exert a moderating influence." An answer could be the creation of an exclusion panel. Since the implications of the exclusion are felt by many different sectors of society, representatives of those affected, including the police, social services, and local businesses, should be involved in the decision process. This would enable a decision to be taken which takes into account the full repercussions of exclusion. There would need to be careful monitoring of the speed in which a decision can be taken in the event of an incident involving violence to pupils or staff. There is no obvious reason why exclusion panels cannot be combined with a duty of placement or financial disincentives in trial areas.
Policies like the above are not panaceas: but by making exclusion truly the last resort it is intended to be, they could have a knock on effect on the earlier disciplinary process. Best practice disseminated by LEAs might be more readily implemented if there was an exclusion panel, a duty of placement, or financial disincentives to exclusion. The balance could then be shifted in favour of prevention rather than the surgical cure of exclusion.
Tackling exclusions from school solely with educational policies is not enough. Often the Police, Social Services, youth services and LEAs all have a role to play in these children’s lives. How to overcome ‘departmentalism’ in local government, and co-ordinate local agencies’ responses to socially excluded young people is a question that Martin Stephenson addresses.
He advocates what amounts to a ‘purchaser-provider’ split in services for disaffected young people. A lack of inter-agency co-ordination has exacerbated many of the problems socially excluded young people face. A project manager from the voluntary sector is attached to a group of disaffected young people. He then arranges the provision of various services from the public and private sectors. These services include relevant work experience at local companies, training at TECs and F.E. colleges and education at a variety of establishments. The project manager gives some continuity of care for the young person in all their dealings with the various agencies involved. This is a significant new role for the voluntary sector worker: as a ‘para-professional’ and as ‘purchaser’ of the appropriate services for the young person.
The government has stated, most recently in the Green Paper on Welfare Reform, that reducing the number of exclusions is a specific target in its battle to tackle social exclusion. This is extremely welcome given the disturbing rise in the number of permanent exclusions during the 1990s. However, exclusion from school is often only a symptom of deeper problems within that child’s life. Co-ordinating the state’s response to the wide variety of problems these children often face should be the next task of local and central government.
