PRUs too stretched to tackle permanent exclusions, warns top Ofsted inspector
Joe Lepper
Tuesday, May 1, 2018
Pupil referral units (PRU) are becoming so stretched that they are unable to help schools prevent permanent exclusions for their most challenging pupils, a senior Ofsted inspector has warned.
Giving evidence to an education select committee hearing on alternative school provision, senior inspector Sue Morris-King praised partnerships between some schools and PRUs to support children at risk of being permanently excluded.
However, she warned that the number of permanently excluded children in PRUs is rising and leaving many too stretched to help schools with preventative work with pupils displaying the most challenging behaviour.
"Students don't have to be permanently excluded from school in order to go to alternative provision," she told MPs.
"What we see and what we saw repeatedly in our survey in 2016 was schools using good quality alternative provision as something that would help the young person to not be excluded."
She said that this involves pupils doing "something that really engages them, re-engages them in school, motivates them and helps them see the point of getting good qualifications and improving their literacy and numeracy".
"Good schools can do that very well without permanent exclusion and often that's done as a preventative measure," she added.
However, she warned: "One of the things we are seeing in some areas is PRUs getting completely full of permanently excluded pupils and therefore not being able to help with part-time placements."
She added: "In some areas we can see something of a vicious circle beginning to form with the PRUs being full, not being able to do any outreach, not being able to take any responsive placements to help support behaviour."
Morris-King's comments suggest the problem is deteriorating quickly - a 2017 Children's Commissioner for England report, Falling Through the Gaps in Education, found that less than one in five pupils attending PRUs have been permanently excluded.
Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, who was also giving evidence, told the committee that a factor in the increase in permanent exclusions is the splitting up of the school system into academies, free schools and council-maintained schools.
"(This) leads to an atomisation and sometimes leads to institutions thinking of themselves as an institution more than the education service as a whole," he added.
Stuart Gallimore, president of the Association of Directors of Children's Services, told MPs that schools should retain accountability for pupils they permanently exclude as an incentive to improve support for challenging pupils.
"I don't believe our schools are being incentivised to be inclusive," he added.
Latest government figures show there were 6,685 permanent exclusions in 2015/16, compared with 5,795 the previous year and 4,950 in 2013/14.
In March, the government announced a review into school exclusions, which is being lead by former children's minister Edward Timpson.
In February, Ofsted wrote to more than 100 head teachers across eight exclusion "hot spots" to raise concerns about the high number of children being removed from schools in their area.