Increase in proportion of unqualified teachers in alternative schools
Neil Puffett
Friday, July 20, 2018
Children excluded from mainstream schools are two-and-a-half times more likely to have an unqualified teacher, research has found.
Analysis conducted jointly by education charity The Difference and the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) found that the proportion of unqualified teachers in alternative provision rose by 17 per cent over the past two years, despite falling by six per cent in mainstream schools.
Meanwhile, classroom vacancies in schools for excluded pupils have trebled over the past five years. As a result, excluded pupils are twice as likely to have a temporary supply teacher.
The statistics come from analysis of Department for Education school workforce data, published in November. Analysts compared proportions of unqualified and temporary staff, and numbers of vacant posts in mainstream secondary schools, and special and alternative provision schools.
Separate DfE figures published yesterday show a continuing rise in the number of pupils excluded. The overall rate of fixed-period exclusions increased, from 4.29 per cent of pupil enrolments in 2015/16 to 4.76 per cent in 2016/17. The number of exclusions has also increased, from 339,360 to 381,865.
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Kiran Gill, IPPR associate fellow and founder of The Difference, said the new data makes clear that the situation is worsening, not improving.
"Too often the country's most vulnerable and troubled children become invisible as they are pushed out of the mainstream school system," he said.
"But by not addressing their challenges when they first appear, we are brewing trouble for later. The majority of today's prison population were excluded when at school."
Robert Halfon, chairman of the education select committee, said: "Policymakers need to sit up and take notice of the rising problem of school exclusions and the outcomes for children in alternative provision.
"Some of our most vulnerable children are being let down and the government should pay close attention to this report's call for the most talented teachers to work with those children who need them most".
Labour MP David Lammy, who conducted a review of the over-representation of black, Asian and ethnic minority people in the criminal justice system, described school exclusions as a "quiet social apartheid".
"The relationship between pupil referral units and the criminal justice system has become symbiotic and the rise of exclusions is creating a pipeline of young people into our prison system. There is no fiscal or moral case to continue like this."
The government is conducting a review into school exclusions, led by former children's minister Edward Timpson.
