Schools: Non-attending Pupils
(11 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Brinton
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what the relevant bodies are doing to ensure that pupils who have not been formally excluded but are not attending school are provided with a full-time education.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, the subject of this debate may affect only a small number of pupils in terms of the total school population—some thousands of children a year—but their education is put at risk either by a lack of co-ordination by their school when they are out of school and getting help elsewhere or, I am afraid, the complete absence of any support.
The statutory guidance, Ensuring a Good Education for Children Who Cannot Attend School Because of Health Needs, which was reissued this May, is helpful but sadly not followed by all schools. The main categories of children that I have met or heard from recently are those with medical conditions, children who are so severely bullied that they cannot face going to school, or those who have been excluded informally by the school and pressured by the parent.
Perhaps we can tackle that last one first. Over recent years there have been anecdotes about children with emotional and behavioural difficulties not being quite difficult enough to be excluded, and this is worsened when the school does not want them on the premises during an Ofsted inspection. I had hoped that this habit had died down, but recently I heard from the National Deaf Children’s Society about two very different cases from different parts of the country.
In the first, a parent was repeatedly called to her deaf child’s school from work during lunchtime and told to take her son home because of “social disruptions” caused by his learning difficulty. The repeated phone calls acted informally to exclude the student from school and to burden the parent, and very few formal steps were taken by the school to remedy the problem. In the second case, the support assistant of a deaf student was called to jury duty for 12 weeks and the school failed to provide any supplementary support for the student. An Ofsted inspection was taking place and the mother was pressured into not sending her child into school so that the inspector would not see the problem.
Schools are also very anxious about recording authorised and unauthorised absences. One student received multiple “unauthorised absences” from school because he had to attend his medical appointments. His parents had informed the school of the medical needs but the school still held him accountable and required the parents to meet officials to discuss the absences. The parents said that they felt under pressure to avoid their child going to necessary medical appointments so as to improve the school’s attendance figures.
I ask the Minister whether there are robust systems in place to ensure that schools are being held to account for these informal exclusions. How will Ofsted be made aware that they are happening? Who can parents report things to if they are worried that the school is not listening or behaving properly? This is true especially for academies and free schools, where there is no recourse to a local authority for help.
Last month I had the privilege of meeting, here in the Palace of Westminster, a number of pupils and students from the Alliance of Healthcare Conditions. Some of their stories are also worrying. I met an 18-year-old girl who, at 14, had been diagnosed with osteosarcoma and had a tumour removed. This meant she was out of school, either in hospital or at home, for the best part of a year just as she was starting her GCSE courses options. Her maths teacher, who was also the deputy head of the school, called every other week to check in and offer her support for maths, which the girl then passed very well at age 16, having returned to school. But there was absolutely no co-ordination between the school, other staff, and the hospital school or her home tutor provided by the local authority when she was at home.
I talked last week to Dr Clarissa Pilkington, a pediatric rheumatology consultant at Great Ormond Street Hospital, who confirmed that this problem is widespread among hospital schools. She said that hospital schools would welcome more contact with children’s schools, not least because they can target support at the right level of learning, especially for students working towards exams or qualifications. The statutory guidance I mentioned earlier talks about liaising with a school when the child is going back to school, but it does not talk much, if at all, about the school liasing as the child goes out of school and into alternative support.
Dr. Pilkington also commented that appropriate learning and short bursts of concentration can help her patients manage their pain and other symptoms, so learning is useful to the medical process too. Will the Minister please say whether there is a requirement for such co-ordination in cases where it is obvious that children will be out of school for an extended period? Who checks the level of support that a pupil or student gets at home if they are out of school for a period, and are the local authority and the relevant home tutor given access to staff at the local school so that they can set the appropriate level of work?
I know that my next example is an independent school, but the Telegraph recently reported that the parents of a student attending an independent boys’ school were pressured, by threats of exclusion, into removing him. The student, who was eventually diagnosed with severe ADHD, had passed his entrance exams with high marks, tested well, participated in athletics, but struggled with homework and long tasks due to difficulty concentrating. That is not uncommon with ADHD. He also struggled with sleeping. Eventually a meeting was called at the school. The deputy head promised to provide details of an educational psychologist but failed to do so and recommended a school counsellor instead. His parents were eventually told he would be excluded if he continued to behave in that way. They felt compelled to remove him before he was excluded. Following his formal diagnosis by a pediatric neurologist, he now attends a new school with smaller classes and full-time SEN staff. The pupil was very distressed by the behaviour of his former school. I raise this example to say the problem is not confined to the maintained sector.
I now move to children so severely bullied that they cannot go to school. The Minister and I have talked about alternative provision for these children, but that is not the focus of this debate, even though much more of it is needed across England and Wales. I want to know what happens to the pupils defined as school refusers but still on the school roll, often because the school will not accept that bullying is happening in the school. Last week I heard of a young man who was the victim of homophobic bullying, who was last in his school two years ago. He cannot get to alternative provision elsewhere because the school insists that he must return to the specialist support unit inside the school, as the school believes it can handle the problem. It has failed, however, to take into account that he is still taunted and bullied on his walk to and from the school and inside the school on his way to the unit. He is now 17. He is approaching the end of his school career with no qualifications, clinical depression, and despair about the whole education system. Can the Minister say what a student and their parents should do when a school behaves in this way?
Admissions is another issue for children with medical conditions. An 11-year-old girl I met has very serious allergies, causing life-threatening anaphylactic shock. Because of her allergies, the hospital consultant has said she should not travel on public transport. Her mother applied for her to go to the local school. Her appeal to go there was refused because the school said it was not a medical condition despite the intervention from her consultant. Worse, the staff at the school said they would refuse to use the EpiPen if she went into shock, so she could not attend the new school from the beginning of term. When I last talked to her mother 10 days ago, she was still out of school. Are schools allowed to decide what is and is not a medical condition? Medical need for admission has always been prioritised. It is shameful that some schools are running away from their responsibilities. I know that the Government are being very helpful in the Children and Families Bill on the issue of staff giving emergency medication, but refusing a child a place in school is patently ridiculous.
To conclude, there are too many pupils out of school for extended periods who are invisible to the system. I ask the Minister whether there is any record of the level of educational attainment for these young people out of school for a long time. Is there an opportunity to disaggregate the data from the whole-school figures to show those on the roll but not currently attending, and, perhaps more importantly, is this something Ofsted should be asking schools to account for? Most importantly, what are the Government going to do to ensure that this very vulnerable group of pupils gets access to the education that it deserves and is entitled to?
Baroness Morgan of Ely (Lab)
My Lords, I should like to pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for ensuring that this important issue is debated today. I should also like to pay tribute to the tremendous efforts made by schools and teachers up and down the country, who work tirelessly to educate our children, often despite the efforts of many ill disciplined and disruptive students to put them off.
Every child matters, yet there are times when exclusions become necessary. The child, however, must not then be deprived of education. We on this side of the House understand the critical importance of discipline. It provides a bedrock for sound learning. We also understand that there are times when there is a need, for the sake of discipline, to exclude pupils from school. The vast majority of teachers do everything they can to ensure that pupils get the best start possible. I particularly applaud the efforts of teachers and head teachers on the reduction in the number of children who have been officially excluded from school over the past few years.
We are, however, concerned by the increasing number of children who have been informally excluded—or, to put it another way, illegally excluded—from school. I say “illegally” because the rules on informal exclusions are absolutely clear. The rules state that if a child is excluded from school in any way at any time, this should be formally recorded. A due process has to be followed, which includes a referral to the board of governors. A child can be legally excluded only for disciplinary reasons. Head teachers must tell parents and carers formally, in writing, why their child has been excluded and for how long.
Guidelines have also been set for what kind of activity would lead to exclusion. It states clearly that a school cannot exclude children because it feels it does not have the resources to deal with them or because it believes a child needs time to cool off. The guidelines specify that any exclusion of a pupil, even for a short period, must be made and recorded formally. Are the rules being followed? The answer to this, according to the Children’s Commissioner for England, which published a report on this issue in April, and according to the charity Contact a Family, which published a separate report in February, is a resounding no. The Children’s Commissioner for England has found evidence to suggest that one in 10 secondary schools is forcing pupils to stay away from lessons but failing to record the punishment formally in the register.
The problem seems to be that many head teachers simply do not realise that asking parents to collect a child at lunchtime to cool off, or to keep them at home for a few days, counts as exclusion. There is increasing evidence to suggest that head teachers use this as a method to exclude children for minor misdemeanours, such as larking around in the classroom, breaking uniform policy or a bad haircut. Some academies are attempting to avoid scrutiny of their exclusions by external independent appeals panels and are refusing to hear appeals from parents. That right has been removed. Part of the problem is that we cannot be sure of the scale of the problem. Is the Department for Education collecting figures or monitoring local authorities’ and academies’ performance on this issue?
According to the Children’s Commissioner, the scale of illegal exclusions is enormous. Who is affected by this? As the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, mentioned, children with special educational needs, disabled and bullied children and poor children feel the brunt of these exclusions. According to the charity Contact a Family, 22% of disabled children are illegally excluded at least once a week and 15% are illegally excluded every day for part of the day. Pupils with special educational needs are eight times more likely to be permanently excluded than their peers. Pupils with SEN statements are seven times more likely to be excluded while those without statements are nine times more likely to be excluded. More than two-thirds of all permanently excluded children have some form of identified SEN. It is clear that informal exclusions now follow the same pattern.
Of course, it is not just the children who are affected. Parents also suffer as they often feel constantly on call. Many have to drop everything to pick up their children. That means it is impossible for them to hold down a job, forcing them into further poverty, according to the Children’s Society. Parents are often afraid to take on the school and challenge illegal exclusions because of the impact that might have on their child’s school record.
If we know this is happening, why is nothing being done about it? Who is responsible for enforcing these rules? Ofsted is the lead body responsible for policing these policies but its sanctions on the issue are mixed in with an assessment of the school as a whole. It would seem highly unlikely under the present system that this one issue would have a dramatic impact on the overall assessment of the school. It is very difficult for Ofsted even to know that these temporary exclusions are happening as they are not recorded. Local authorities have a duty to provide full-time education to children, but in the face of tremendous budget cuts imposed by the coalition Government, the resources that local authorities have to police this problem and to track these cases are being put under increasing pressure. There is a responsibility to educate but the follow-up of excluded children is sporadic at best. If the issue is as large as the Children’s Commissioner suggests, and if we know that these actions are illegal, how does the Minister intend to tackle this issue? Currently, it seems as if there are very few sanctions for illegal exclusions.
It is right to dwell on the consequences of illegal exclusions on children. Informal exclusion means that children are more likely to fall through the education net. If local authorities are not informed, children are unlikely to be given the statutory schooling that they have a right to receive. Once children fall behind, it is very hard for them to catch up and they are likely to become even more disruptive. Their chances of finding a job are diminished and they are forced on to the state and the taxpayer for support. Fixing this problem early is therefore an economic imperative for the country.
Could the Minister answer the following questions? Does he agree that head teachers and teachers should be given training and guidance on the rules, so that they are aware that informal exclusions are in fact illegal? Part of the reason for unofficial exclusions from school is the lack of the teachers’ ability to instil discipline and manage behaviour. These skills are taught to teachers with teaching qualifications but we are deeply worried that the Government are allowing unqualified teachers into schools on a permanent basis who have not had this training. Does the Minister believe that we should look to best practice and encourage schools to ensure the professional development of school leaders, teachers and trainees, including formal teaching qualifications that teach strategies to create a good learning environment and prevent exclusions?
Will the Government reinstate the independent appeals panel for illegal exclusions? The Education Act 2011 removed the right of parents to appeal to an independent appeals panel against permanent exclusion. That has been replaced by an independent review panel with reduced powers that cannot require a school to reinstate a pupil it judges to have been unfairly excluded. Will the Government issue further, more specific guidance on the principles of exclusion thresholds? For example: “Exclusions should happen only to protect the health and safety of pupils and prevent disruption of learning”. This would stop schools excluding children for having a bad haircut or for other trivial reasons. That is happening today in our society.
As I mentioned at the start, schools should be congratulated on the reduction in the number of formal exclusions over recent years but there is a danger that the problem is simply being displaced to children being informally excluded from schools. The Government need to nip this issue in the bud and save these children from a life of disruption and exclusion. That will not happen unless there is a sanction against those who transgress the rules.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash) (Con)
I thank my noble friend Lady Brinton for securing this important debate and for her eloquent speech. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, for her excellent contribution. I pay tribute to the work of my noble friend Lady Brinton in championing the cause of children who are excluded, particularly those who have been subject to bullying. I am also aware that Ofsted intends to publish next week a report on children who are not receiving full-time education, which will highlight weaknesses in the system and make recommendations for improvement, with examples of good practice. I hope noble Lords will find that helpful. I welcome this opportunity to set out the other actions the Government are taking to help ensure that pupils outside mainstream schools receive the good quality education they deserve.
I hope that the instances to which my noble friend referred will be helped by the managing medicines amendments we have tabled to the Children and Families Bill. She raised a question about ensuring co-operation between hospitals and mainstream schools. Where a pupil attends hospital while at school, the local authority retains its duty to ensure that they receive suitable education. We enforced in statutory guidance the role of the local authority in promoting co-operation between schools and children who cannot attend because of health needs.
On omissions, while there is a clear omissions appeal procedure, I will look at the particular point that my noble friend made about who can decide what a medical condition is and will write to her about that. On the point about who records the educational attainment of these pupils, if they are permanently excluded the AP provider would retain that and Ofsted would report on it. The results would show that. If they are not permanently excluded, the school would continue to hold those results.
She raised briefly the subject of bullying. In this Government’s view, bullying is completely unacceptable. Every school must have a behaviour policy which includes specifically what it does about bullying, including homophobic bullying. Ofsted will inspect against that. We have provided considerable support to a number of organisations to help schools in that regard. Where a child has been permanently excluded, it is the responsibility of the local authority to organise full-time education through an alternative provision provider. Where the child is temporarily excluded under a fixed-term exclusion, it is the school’s responsibility to make other arrangements.
On unlawful exclusion, there is no excuse for a school to exclude unlawfully any pupil. As I have said, the Government have given schools greater powers to manage behaviour. We are also addressing the underlying causes of disengagement, for example by reforming SEN and identification, particularly in relation to early identification. Ofsted is fully aware of this issue and we have toughened up the Ofsted inspection regime. Should evidence that exclusion has been used unlawfully come to light during an inspection, this will be taken very seriously. Unlawful exclusion would raise serious questions that may be linked to leadership, management, school safeguarding procedures, governance, behaviour and safety.
If a parent thought that their child had been unlawfully excluded, their first right of redress would be to the school governing body. If it is a maintained school, it would be to the local authority, or, if it is an academy or a maintained school, they could complain directly to the Department for Education. We would take a dim view of any school that we thought was gaming the system in this way. Certainly, the academy sponsors that we are supporting to turn around schools that have been left to languish in failure for years up and down the county are passionately committed to inclusion and are completely against the concept of exclusion, as I am. In five years at my school, we have permanently excluded only two children, in those cases reluctantly.
As the noble Baroness states, statutory guidance on exclusions is clear: exclusions must follow the legal process. The Children’s Commissioner report made clear that the majority of schools follow that process. In the past, some schools might have taken an “out of sight, out of mind” approach to alternative provision. That is why, since last September, school inspection has included a specific focus on the education, health and safety of pupils in off-site alternative provision. It is important to note that an increasing number of schools are making excellent use of such provision. The Government are also currently trialling, in 11 local authorities, the benefits of schools taking greater responsibility for permanently excluded children. The lessons learnt from that trial will be available to be rolled out across the country.
There are examples of excellent provision. Sawston Village College in Cambridgeshire, of which my noble friend may be aware, uses funding devolved from the department to provide an excellent on-site centre for children in need of short-term respite, including any pupils who have experienced bullying. The centre provides one-to-one support, maintaining a rigorous focus on education and successful reintegration. It also works with a local charity, Centre 33, to provide counselling for those children, including pupils guilty of bullying. A similar approach is used by St Benedict Catholic voluntary academy in Derby. It has a sanctuary to nurture the emotional needs of pupils who may have been bullied. The school has also had a number of pupils trained as anti-bullying ambassadors by the Diana Award, funded by the department.
Revised guidance sets out a clear expectation that pupils in alternative provision should receive an education on a par with that provided in mainstream schools. That is something that the Government are determined to see happen. This came into force only in January and it will take time to have an impact, but it has been widely welcomed and I am grateful for comments from noble Lords during the passage of the Children and Families Bill in support of this. Local authorities are provided with funding for alternative provision, at £8,000 per pupil, and they are free to top this up.
Our focus on alternative provision was highlighted in Charlie Taylor’s report and we have followed all his recommendations. Ofsted is conducting a detailed three-year thematic survey of schools’ use of alternative provision. It is in its second year and early indications are that overall schools’ use of this provision has improved. The final report will make recommendations to supplement better practice. Ofsted has also increased its focus on local authorities’ use of alternative provision. Under the revised framework for integrating looked-after children and safeguarding inspections, published in September of this year, inspectors will now ask local authorities to report on school-age children for whom they are responsible, but who are not in receipt of full-time education. The first inspections under this new framework are expected later this month. Increasingly, local authorities and school partnerships are developing robust quality-assurance frameworks for alternative provision. A framework developed by Waltham Forest, for example, has formed the basis for a more co-ordinated approach to commissioning across 10 other local authorities.
Alternative provision is not solely for pupils with behavioural needs. While it is not possible to identify precise numbers, our best estimate is that around half of pupils in alternative provision are there for reasons other than behaviour. Many so-called pupil referral units, for example, are expressly set up for the purpose of educating pupils with health needs. Among this excellent provision is Hawkswood therapeutic school in Waltham Forest, which caters specifically for pupils unable to attend a mainstream school because of complex emotional reasons. Ofsted noted favourably the success rate in this school.
Despite the examples of good alternative provision, we recognise that the overall quality and range of providers have not always been sufficient. We have already taken steps to raise standards by increasing the role of maintained schools in PRU management committees, for example, and allowing trainee teachers to undertake placements specifically in alternative provision providers. Eight PRUs took up this opportunity in the first year and their experience has formed the basis of a toolkit to support others to do the same. We are also allowing PRUs to benefit from the freedom of academy status. Eighteen have converted already, such as the outstanding Bridge AP Academy in Hammersmith and Fulham. We are also supporting new, high-quality providers to enter the market and 18 AP free schools have opened already, with a further 16 scheduled to open in September 2014.
Noble Lords have spoken with great passion and insight on this issue. The Government are committed to the plight of all children and will not tolerate schools gaming the system in the ways that have been suggested, and we will do everything that we can to ensure that this does not take place. I hope that I have provided some reassurance that we are taking effective steps to ensure that children who are not attending school are provided with the high-quality, full-time education that they deserve. I appreciate the noble Baroness’s commitment to this cause and I am always happy to meet her to discuss any further concerns.