Job title: Pupil referral unit head teacher

What qualifications and experience are needed to head up a PRU in England and Wales?
There are around 400 pupil referral units (PRUs) in England and Wales, which cater for children and young people who need support outside of mainstream education. PRU heads, also known as the “teacher in charge”, must be qualified teachers, and must have experience of dealing with the particular needs of the young people in ?their establishment.

These could range from young people with challenging behaviour who have been permanently excluded from other schools to young mums or pregnant schoolgirls, and from children with a phobia of school to asylum seekers or looked-after children with no school place due to a placement move.

Many PRU heads have a background of heading up behaviour management in mainstream schools. An experience of a variety of educational settings is also an advantage.

How is current policy affecting the role?
Pupil referral unit staff are employed by the local authority that sets up and runs the unit. However, the Education Act 2011 opened the door for pupil referral units in England, but not in Wales, to adopt academy status as alternative provision academies, while new units can set up as alternative provision free schools. The heads of these centres will be employed directly by the academy or free school. Other forms of alternative education are run by third sector or private sector organisations.

The government’s expert adviser on behaviour, Charlie Taylor, recently published a report into improving alternative educational provision, which contains a number of recommendations that would affect the role of PRU head, not least the recommendation that the majority of PRUs should be converted to academies or closed by 2018.

Taylor also recommends successful PRUs should be able to provide services beyond their local authority boundaries and become hubs for accessing other services such as behaviour support. The government has not yet responded to the report.

What personal qualities do PRU heads need?
Dr April May Kitchener, Welsh secretary of the National Organisation for Pupil Referral Units in England and Wales, says PRU staff must be able to “think outside the box”. “People who need to tick boxes and stay in routines are not going to be as successful,” she says. “Children in pupil referral units generally have crises in their lives and PRU staff must have lots of strategies open to them. You have to be able to move with a child’s emotional needs, and have a wider perspective on a child. Strategies taught to primary school teachers are actually very suitable to PRUs.”

Kitchener’s own research has identified six characteristics of a successful PRU head: pastoral skills; high expectations and the ability to challenge staff and pupils; innovation; being an intellectual and clear thinker with organisational skills and a wide knowledge of educational matters; being a long-term planner and holistic worker; and being committed.

What are the rewards of the job?
Kitchener says: “Working with children who can cope with mainstream education can have clear rewards. GCSE results are something you can measure success with. In a PRU it might be that a child that has been aggressive sits and listens – that for me is a reward.” Kitchener says she recently received a thank you email from a former pupil after 17 years. “That was a huge reward,” she says.

What are the challenges of the job?
Working with troubled children can throw up challenges, but PRU workers also see their work as being undermined by negative stereotyping, with mainstream media references to “sin bins”.

How is the role developing?
“Over the years the role of head has become much more professional, and more challenging,” says Kitchener.

“Heads are finding themselves managing larger provision and larger budgets; the role has increased enormously. And as budget cuts have led to the closure of many special schools, PRUs are taking on more children and young people with statements of special educational needs.”

According to the DfE, 79 per cent of pupils in PRUs have special educational needs.


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