Ofsted announces crackdown on school exclusion 'hot spots'
Joe Lepper
Tuesday, February 20, 2018
Ofsted is to write to more than 100 head teachers across eight exclusion "hot spots", to raise concerns about the high number of pupils being removed from schools in their area.
According to Department for Education figures for 2015/16 eight areas from just two regions, the North East and Yorkshire and the Humber, are among the top 10 council localities with the highest exclusion rates in England.
Ofsted said that while it accepts that schools have a right to exclude pupils when their behaviour is violent, is threatening towards teachers or is affecting other pupils' learning, it is concerned that schools may be removing challenging pupils to boost their performance.
Ofsted's regional director for the North East, and Yorkshire and the Humber, Cathy Kirby, will this week write to all 114 secondary school head teachers across the eight areas raising concerns.
The eight areas are Middlesbrough, Barnsley, Redcar and Cleveland, Doncaster, North Lincolnshire, Rotherham, Sheffield and North East Lincolnshire.
She is also asking inspectors visiting schools in the areas to look carefully at use of exclusion when making judgments about leadership and management of pupils' behaviour.
"I fully appreciate variations between individual secondary schools and recognise that there may be valid reasons for schools to exclude pupils," she said.
"But it is difficult to understand why fixed-period exclusion should be so much more necessary in these eight local authorities compared with others," said Kirby.
"Schools should only ever use exclusions as a last resort. If not properly applied, being removed from school can disrupt a child's education and affect their future life chances.
"So I am asking inspectors to look very carefully at the use of exclusion in areas with high rates compared with national and regional figures. We want to be certain that pupils are being removed for the right reasons."
The latest DfE figures show that Middlesbrough has the highest secondary school exclusion rate in England, of 12.75 per cent of all pupils in the area. This is around three times the England-wide rate of 4.26 per cent. Barnsley has the second highest rate, of 11.23 per cent.
The only two areas in the top 10 not in the North East and Yorkshire and Humberside are Knowsley in the North West, which has an exclusion rate of 8.81 per cent, and Telford and Wrekin in the West Midlands, where the exclusion rate is 7.79 per cent.
Chris Keates, general secretary of teaching union NASUWT urged Ofsted not to assume that schools in areas of high exclusion rates are removing pupils unfairly.
"While it is important for Ofsted to monitor local and regional exclusion patterns, it is also critical that no action is taken to undermine the confidence of schools to use fixed-term exclusions where appropriate," said Keates.
"It is important not to jump to any premature conclusions about practice in the local authorities named by Ofsted as having particularly high exclusion rates.
"Stakeholders should work together to examine the causes of these apparently high rates of exclusion and what, if any action, is appropriate."
Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, called on the government to help schools better support children with behaviour problems in school.
"Rising numbers of exclusion is a worrying trend and one to which the Department for Education must give serious and constructive consideration," he said.
"Schools should be places where all children can enjoy their learning in a supportive, vibrant and caring environment where they are supported to achieve their best.
"Instead the system is failing many children with the creation of an exam factory environment leading to some students feeling demoralised and lost. Chronic cuts to school and local authority funding have also resulted in many support services that schools relied upon to cope with serious behavioural or mental health issues either closed down or drastically reduced."
Last year the children's commissioner for England pledged to push for action to address rising numbers of vulnerable children being informally excluded by schools.
Anne Longfield said she is concerned that a number of schools are forcing or "encouraging" children with behaviour issues to leave school.