Pupil Exclusions – The Unspoken Problem in Schools
Dr Lynne Guyton, CEO John Lyon’s Charity
November 2023
Introduction
‘To Exclude’ – To deny someone access to a place, or group, or privilege. To remove from consideration.
Words matter! The word exclusion has many negative connotations, so it’s unsurprising that when a pupil is excluded from school, they feel numb, raw and broken.
Exclusion silences children’s voices; their hopes and fears. They are limited in what they can do and how to make themselves heard. They have no voice. We need to ensure that this generation of young people are not failed, that their potential is not lost, and their lives not cut short. We live in a society where exclusion has become acceptable; the norm and it never should be. We need to remember that exclusion is a continuum; that once a child is expelled, they are more likely to fail in education, training and employment. They are also more likely to get a criminal record.[1]
State of the Nation
Current trends show that both exclusions and suspensions in secondary schools are on the rise, following a significant drop off during the Covid-19 pandemic. Permanent exclusions, particularly in Greater London, increased by 62% between 2020/21 and 2021/22 alone; and suspensions have already surpassed pre-Covid rates, increasing by 68%. [2]These trends highlight the ongoing need for inclusive teaching approaches informed and driven by the latest available evidence. Schools can play a vital role in supporting children’s wellbeing, protecting and diverting young people at risk of crime and exploitation and enabling them to thrive.
Who is Being Impacted?
Children from certain minority ethnic backgrounds (Gypsy/Roma, mixed White and Black backgrounds) continue to experience the high rates of permanent exclusion. In addition, pupils from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are also more likely to be excluded. Since Covid, children living in poverty are nearly four times more likely to be excluded, as were those eligible for free school meals. Furthermore, 40% of children who have had a child protection plan or were looked after in state care in Years 4 – 6 were excluded at least once across secondary school.[3]
There is also an increasing attendance crisis across secondary schools. The attendance gap is widening, with disadvantaged pupils more likely to be absent and persistently absent than their peers. Schools are reporting to us an increase in safeguarding concerns, behaviour incidents and pupil absence because of the increased Cost of Living pressure.
Pupils with Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities are five times more likely to be excluded from school compared to non-Special Educational Needs and Disability pupils.[5] This includes children with autism or ADHD who are frequently undiagnosed – partly as it’s not picked up or understood by parents/the school and partly because Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services’ (CAMHS) waiting lists for referral are over two years. Finally, boys are nearly three times more likely to be permanently excluded than girls[6], in part because boys are more likely to have a diagnosis of a Special Educational Need and/or Disability than girls.
What is Being Impacted?
Exclusion is having a massive impact upon attainment. Fewer than 5% of young people in Alternative Provision achieved the GCSEs in English and Maths grades 9-4 compared with 65% of other pupils.[7]
Furthermore, children who have been excluded, report experiencing social isolation, lower confidence and self-esteem and a feeling of being ‘written off’. Over a quarter of pupils in mainstream schools currently require additional support for mental health and emotional wellbeing, but the funding from Local Government is too small to make inroads into the mental health crisis affecting young people post Covid today.[8]
It’s not just existing pupils who are being impacted; the future lives of young people are being severely curtailed. 42% of the adult prison population and 90% of those in young offender institutions has been suspended or permanently excluded from school.[9] There is a direct correlation between undiagnosed poor mental health, neurological diversity, pupil exclusion and the male prison population. The Centre for Social Justice suggests that a single exclusion can go onto cost the state £370,000 per child in additional heath, education, welfare and criminal justice costs. If true, it is important to take early action as preventing even a single exclusion would have a significant cost benefit.[10]
What are We Doing?
Our work with schools across our boroughs over 32 years has funded alternative and complementary solutions, to prevent exclusions. We aren’t talking about ‘Alternative Provision’, itself in crisis due to the overwhelming numbers of pupils being referred to places other than schools. Our work on preventing exclusions in schools has included funding emotional well-being and counselling support, after-school sports clubs targeted at channeling and controlling anger, drama workshops focused on overcoming or dealing with adversity.
However, we have gone one step further with The Excluded Initiative which we started funding four years ago with the London Community Foundation. This is an important resource for schools to change the emphasis to inclusion rather than exclusion. Our focus has been on helping schools create inclusion units within existing schools to prevent permanent exclusions, to address the mental health crisis post Covid and to reverse the long-term impact of exclusion. It is early days, but the evidence is already suggesting that these units are proving to be better and cheaper solutions and policymakers of all political persuasions should sit up and take note. If schools are not able to respond flexibly in provision and support, this systemic failure puts children at greater risk.
All of the inclusion units we are funding have similarities but are different. They all have a strong Head, with a solid vision of which direction they want to take the school in. They also have the support and buy in from staff and parents, something that is critical to success. All are determined to break the cycle of detention / isolation / exclusion that can quickly escalate and feels hard to break once established. All schools have a physical space for the unit within the school grounds, sometimes within the school itself. Some have their own separate entrances and even their own kitchen to make drinks and food. Our funding has been for the specialist, permanent member of staff running the unit. While other teachers may dip in and out of the units to teach the curriculum, the Head of the unit is key – the glue – to ensuring the units work and are integrated into the wider school. However, their individual models do flex according to the demographic of their pupils and the geographic area they are based in. Some have more of a focus on Arts provision, others more on sport as the release valve. The time pupils spend in their respective inclusion units also vary from six weeks to a full term.
Five core themes are emerging as pivotal to the success of all of the units:
- Behaviour and attendance
- Improved attitude to learning
- Improved confidence
- Better relationships with teachers
- A greater belonging in the school
Supportive relationships in the hubs and clear boundaries and routines helped students both in and after their time in the hubs. Support provided in the hub has helped students to improve their engagement with learning, and to keep up with lessons after reintegration. Young people felt that they had greater self-confidence about what they could achieve in school and in the future. One young person commented: “I would 100% tell [other students] to go there, because it literally saved me. I wouldn’t even be here right now if it wasn’t a thing. I’d be in a different school, or I’d be at home, excluded, because I was so bad.”
Smaller group sizes in the hubs, and restorative conversations, supported students to develop better relationships with teachers. Being supported by the hub gave students a sense of belonging in the school, that they are cared for and have a ‘safe space’. One pupil said: “It made my relationship with a lot of the teachers in the school a lot better, because Mr X would always make me apologise to them. Now I just automatically apologise, because I was so used to getting made to apologise, now I just automatically do it. It’s made my relationship with a lot of teachers better.”
The teachers in these schools have reported to us that they feel better supported to work with challenging student behaviour. There are also early suggestions of positive parent responses to the intervention work, and improved relationships with schools, with schools’ reputations improving. Schools are also getting better at developing and strengthening connections with external agencies who can provide services within schools (e.g. counsellors, morning physical boot camps).
The strategies that have had the most impact within the inclusion hubs so far have been:
- 1:1 or small group teaching giving tailored, personalised support
- Consistency, routines and boundaries
- Specific emotional support provided
- Restorative approaches to build positive relationships with teachers
- Strong, supportive relationships between students & hub staff.
Having built trust and confidence in pupils and between pupils and staff, it has also been critical to ensure that the reintegration process back into the mainstream school is a success. One teacher said: “Before the end of their first six weeks, the staff are invited to come in and have conversations with students that they will be teaching, have those restoratives, lay out those expectations, really getting the student prepared to go back out into mainstream.” Throughout the schools, the approach to reintegration has been similar, with clear expectations set and passed re-integration for pupils making the transitions successful.
Ensuring that the hub is connected with the wider school values and ensuring the buy-in and support of mainstream staff has not been without challenges, but again is key to the inclusion hubs working well for both pupils and teachers. One teacher said: “Yes, it was a steep learning curve, to say the least, but I’ve really, really enjoyed it. Having experience in the behavioral unit has made me want to maybe look into that kind of work in the future, as well. I think it’s really rewarding.”
What Next?
For just £50K per school per year we have supported four schools to re-think their approach to exclusions and establish four very different but effective and nurturing environments that are supporting some of their most challenged and complex children to remain in school. This is clearly much more cost effective and better for the individual pupils than the cost and experience of being excluded.
Our focus going forward will be threefold:
- We are still learning from the Inclusion Units we have established. However, it is clear that post-Covid many of the problems highlighted earlier in this blog are now being seen in Junior Schools. Our aim will be to investigate funding and addressing these issues in key feeder schools before pupils transition to Senior School.
- We will continue to collaborate with other funders on exclusions/inclusions and to promote this issue as a news agenda item.
- Finally, we will inform the current Government and Opposition of the success we have seen through our pilot of Inclusion Units to encourage policy change for a better future.
[1] 58 per cent of young adults in prison were permanently excluded at school, Centre for Social Justice, 2023
[2] Mission 44, 2022 Annual Report.
[3] Mission 44, 2022 Annual Report.
[5] Centre for Social Justice (2021) IntegratEd Annual Report and The Difference Impact Report 2021-2022
[6] https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/permanent-and-fixed-period-exclusions-in-england
[7] Mission 44, 2022 Annual Report and The Difference Impact Report 2021-2022
[8] Mission 44, 2022 Annual Report and Department for Education, SEND Review: Right Support Right Place Right Time, 2022.
[9] Mission 44, Unpublished research
[10] Gill et al (2017) Making The Difference IPPR and Department for Education (2022) Schools, pupils and their Characteristics