It would be hard to justify not excluding a pupil who threatens another child in school with a knife.
An education welfare officer explains how he made sure the child's needs were taken into account without compromising the school's need to maintain discipline.
I was called to a local primary school a few weeks ago after one of its pupils, a 10-year-old boy who was in care, took a knife onto the premises. He was provoked by another child in the playground and responded by threatening to stab them. Although the threat was not carried out, his behaviour clearly posed a danger both to other pupils and teachers at the school.
The headteacher was considering handing the boy a 15-day fixed term exclusion.
But I was concerned that this would be counter-productive for the boy given his situation and needs.
His grandmother had cared for him for much of his life, but she had died the year before and he was placed in the care of the local authority.
Of course, I would never condone taking a knife into school, but the boy was coping with yet another rejection, he was angry and had been provoked.
I knew that if he was handed a 15-day fixed term exclusion then this could make a permanent exclusion more likely. This is because if a pupil accumulates 45 days of fixed term exclusions then the school has to go for a permanent exclusion. So if you go for big chunks of 15 days, the danger is that you can only do it three times.
I discussed all of this with the head and he agreed that a permanent exclusion would not meet the boy's needs. But while he was sympathetic, he stressed that he had to make a point to the other pupils by excluding the boy for a serious amount of time. In the end, we agreed on a 10-day fixed exclusion and five days of compassionate leave.
From my point of view, this was a satisfactory compromise. As an education welfare officer I want to discourage exclusions because when the children are out of school their chances start diminishing. But equally I understand that schools sometimes need to do it and it's a case of balancing those two things out. Ideally we would have first liked to hold a case review with all the agencies involved to try and meet this child's needs. What we really needed was some time to pull together resources and draw up an action plan for the child's needs.
- Have you ever faced a tough professional choice? Call Stovin Hayter on 020 8267 4767 or email stovin.hayter@haynet.com.
