The national behaviour tsar has urged the next government to oversee a “massive reinvestment in the alternative provision estate” to provide for a “significant minority” of students in mainstream schools “whose needs can very rarely be met” by them.
Tom Bennett - who has acted as government behaviour advisor since 2015 - has also called for a “national programme” to build new APs, alongside an expansion of AP provision within mainstream schools.
His calls come amid warnings that schools are facing a crisis of rising exclusions and demand for AP places amid a reported rise in poor behaviour post-pandemic.
After the announcement of the general election last week, Tes asked Mr Bennett what he would like to see from the next government on behaviour.
PRUs ‘are not sin bins’
Mr Bennett said there needs to be “massive reinvestment in the alternative provision estate” adding that AP and pupil referral units (PRUs) are “life-saving when done right” and “are not sin bins or waste bins for children that have failed”.
He added: “I think there is a significant minority of children in mainstream education whose needs can very rarely be met in mainstream contexts”.
Mr Bennett also told Tes he would like to see “an expansion of AP mainstream provision for children with borderline mainstream needs”.
A Tes investigation earlier this year revealed the scale of demand facing APs and PRUs, with many already full by last term and dealing with unprecedented waiting lists.
Mr Bennett told Tes that there are currently “far too few high-quality destinations for children post exclusions”.
He said that AP has been “historically underfunded for a long time” and the fact that national provision is decided at a local level “leads to wide variations of support available”.
While funding is a part of the problem, Mr Bennett said that the sector also needs “more direction at a higher level, and treated with parity of status with the mainstream sector”.
“There should be no “deserts” where schools can’t access high-quality AP. But we also need to see local authorities, governors and MAT CEOs seeing AP as intensive care, not a failure of mainstream,” he added.
Mr Bennett added that “everything needs funding” but such additions are “an investment that pays huge dividends”.
“A huge number of schools already have some form of internal support area. What we need to see now is a scaling up of what the best schools are doing, like Passmores Academy in Harlow, Essex,” he added.
He also called for a “national training program for leaders in how they can get the most out of their in-school support processes: the systems, the strategies, the approaches that integrate support with other mainstream school processes like the behaviour curriculum or the consequences systems”.
‘We must invest from the start’
However, while AP and heads’ leaders agree there needs to be more funding in post-exclusion settings, they said investment in early identification is also needed.
Emma Bradshaw, CEO of MAT Alternative Learning Trust with four schools across London and the South East, said that AP “needs investment in estate and revenue funding so that it can take its place in the system”.
Ms Bradshaw added that while AP provides a lot of support in the system, “it is situated often in the worst buildings and with the lowest funding in the specialist sector”.
She added that AP can be a “hub” for mainstream schools in its area and a “real system leader that can support the most vulnerable in our system”.
Meanwhile, Sarah Johnson, president of the National Organisation of Pupil Referral Units and Alternative Provision (PRUsAP), called for investment in “supporting children and their families from the start”.
Ms Johnson said this early support includes mental health services, speech and language intervention, and other educational interventions that support pupil development.
And Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders also said that the starting point should be investment in early intervention “to prevent behavioural problems from escalating”.
Mr Di’Iasio added that the special educational needs system “is in a state of near-collapse, social care and mental health support services are overwhelmed and underfunded, and schools are very poorly funded to the extent that it is extremely difficult for them to resource provision for additional needs”.
He said that the lack of investment had created more demand on alternative provision.
Government ‘proud of how it has tackled behaviour’
Mr Bennett said the government can “generally be very proud of how it has tackled behaviour” in schools. He added that the golden thread of professional development for the profession that has been developed has helped, alongside the behaviour hubs programme, which he manages, and “behaviour guidance that is now fit for purpose”.
The DfE behaviour hubs scheme was launched in spring 2021 to tackle concerns that behaviour in schools has become increasingly challenging to manage since the pandemic.
Mr Bennett called for funding to be continued under the next government, and said it was having a positive impact on school improvement.
In a post on X - formerly known as Twitter - this week, he claimed that Ofsted gradings for schools that had “graduated” from the behaviour hub programme showed that more had received “good” or “outstanding” inspection outcomes.
However, Mr Di’Iasio hit back at the comment: “We don’t think the government can be proud of how it has tackled behaviour,” he said, adding the behaviour hubs programme is a “very limited intervention” and there had been “a significant lack of support in dealing with the root causes of behavioural challenges”.
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