There is a growing consensus that school exclusion needs to be tackled. The Institute for Public Policy Research thinktank estimates that the average cost of exclusion to the state is around £370,000 per young person, amounting to £2.1 billion for the 2017-18 cohort alone.
And there is untold damage and distress behind that figure: just 1 per cent of excluded children gain five good GCSEs; mental health problems are both a predictor and a symptom of exclusion; more than half of the prison population have been excluded.
But a scroll though Twitter reveals opinion that is split. Yes, exclusion is bad, a last resort, but often these children have been given many chances, and it simply isn’t working out.
Can you justify not excluding a child if they are negatively impacting on the learning of the students around them? If teachers are dreading going to school because of them?
Teachers are in a catch-22 situation. It’s not enough to point the finger at those schools that exclude and label them evil. We need to ask the question: how can these children be successfully integrated into school?
This was the question tackled at IncludED this month, an event bringing together voices from across mainstream education, alternative provision and the youth sector to show that inclusion can be successful and sustainable. What was clear was that prevention is better than cure: we need to tackle the problems before exclusion becomes a possibility. These five things were cited by schools at the event as key to this process.
1. Set out a school-wide vision
The host of the event, Oasis Academy South Bank, an inner-city London secondary school, has two principal aims underpinning all it does: for students to secure their dream job; and to be kind, polite model citizens. This, according to principal Carly Mitchell, has been the key to its exceptional outcomes for pupil premium students.
2. Work with the community
Reach Children’s Hub, part of Reach Academy Feltham, works with local services to provide pastoral support that reaches beyond the school into the community, including pre-natal support for mothers and post-16 support for school leavers. This helps to create a positive environment and builds trust with local children and parents.
3. Share what works
“We are alway learning” said Aaron Collingwoode-Williams, assistant head at Bishop Stopford’s School in Enfield, North London. By connecting and sharing what works, locally and nationally, we can identify what works best and help each other improve.
4. Learn from alternative provision
WAC Arts College in north-west London takes students who “don’t fit” into mainstream school but flourish within different parameters, expressing themselves through film editing, dance or music production. Alternative provision has the freedom to be innovative, and there are valuable lessons to be learned.
5. Reward success
Oasis Academy South Bank and Reach Academy Feltham are both rated “outstanding” by Ofsted. They prove that inclusive schools can also be competitive in the eyes of the regulator. Hopefully, the new Ofsted framework, moving away from internal pupil performance data to “quality of education”, will encourage more schools to think inclusively.
The fundamental message, echoed throughout the day by the teachers, youth workers and young people who spoke at the event, was that we need to believe in the potential of these children. As Professor Sir Tim Brighouse put it in the final keynote of the day: “We can either ask how intelligent is the child, or how is the child intelligent?”
Jack Davies is a campaigner for transparency on exclusions and former youth worker
