Timpson Review of School Exclusion

Debate between Andy Carter and Graham Stringer

Thursday 16th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

Before we begin, can I encourage Members to wear masks when they are not speaking? This is line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. Please also give each other and members of staff space when seated and when entering and leaving the room.

[Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the implementation of the recommendations of the Timpson Review of School Exclusion.

I am delighted to have secured the debate. This is the first time I have led a Westminster Hall debate and I am pleased it is on a topic that many hon. Members care about deeply. I am also delighted, and we are fortunate, that we have the opportunity to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson) who conducted the review for Government. This vital review of the use of school exclusion found that more needed to be done to ensure exclusions are used fairly and consistently, so that every child has access to the high-quality education they deserve.

As a former trustee of an alternative provision multi-academy trust and a chair of governors at a pupil referral unit, I have seen how high-quality education within alternative provision can turn young people’s lives around. Indeed, as an employer leading a business in the creative sector, I worked with AP schools to find career opportunities for young people who thought differently but had creative flair. However, often, because of either an underlying special educational need or challenges in their home life, they had not quite managed to fit into mainstream schooling. With that in mind, I established the all-party parliamentary group for school exclusions and alternative provision when I came to the House to look at ways in which we could reduce the number of preventable exclusions and promote best-quality education for pupils who are excluded.

I thank all those working in the sector, particularly over recent months during the pandemic, who, because of the children, stayed open all the way through. I pay particular tribute to two individuals who have helped me to understand the sector: Seamus Oates, London regional director for the Ormiston Academies Trust, and Karen Thomson, my first head when I became a governor at a school in Warrington.

Through the APPG, we have met many pupils and parents, as well as teachers and local authority inclusion needs experts, all of whom work day in, day out with pupils excluded from school. They continue to urge the Government to implement the important recommendations of the Timpson review. While some progress has been made in implementing those proposals, a lot more still needs to be made, so I am delighted the Minister is in Westminster Hall today to give a progress update.

Our collective determination should be to ensure that every child being educated in alternative provision obtains better outcomes than they would have achieved in a mainstream school. With better models of AP working effectively with the sector, as well as more funding, we will be a few steps closer to making that aim a reality.

Therefore, these recommendations have never been more important, as pupils return to school from a year of immense disruption. Even prior to the pandemic, we were starting to see a dangerous uptick in the number of permanent and fixed-term exclusions. I say again that the most vulnerable children—those known to social services and those with special educational needs—are most likely to disappear from school rolls, and I am afraid the pandemic has only further entrenched what is a barrage of disadvantage.

One of the most worrying conversations I had during the summer recess was with a mainstream headteacher at a school in Warrington who highlighted the number of children now appearing on the local authority’s at-risk register. Those children were becoming involved with county lines drugs gangs and entering the criminal justice system owing to schools being closed, and they are now at risk of permanent exclusion from their mainstream school.

The Government have rightly been concerned about the learning that pupils have lost over the last year. We should also be concerned that that disruption to learning might well reverse progress that the Government have made since 2011 in closing the attainment gap. However, a growing cohort of pupils are not returning to school, and consequently they cannot access the support in which the Government have rightly invested.

As schools reopened, we found that pupils were disengaging from school at a frightening pace. Nearly 100,000 pupils were severely absent last year, missing more than half their education through non-attendance. We also face an increase in mental health issues in our classroom, with the rate of children with probable mental health disorders rising from one child in nine in 2017 to one child in six in 2020. All those factors point to an increased need for upstream support, by which I mean that if we are to avoid permanent exclusions, we need to intervene earlier.

Teachers and parents—those who have been through the exclusion process with their children—as well as inclusion leads told us during sessions held by the APPG that we need to invest in a system that offers both high standards and high support for our most vulnerable learners, securing every pupil’s right to high-quality education. One of the first steps to achieving that would be recognising the importance of alternative provision in the education landscape and enshrining the role of giving support to pupils at risk of exclusion.

As was found by the review undertaken by my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury, the best AP across the country offers some of the greatest expertise in working with children who have challenging behaviours and additional needs. Those providers are seen not as a last-chance saloon, but as a place where life chances can be transformed. That is where we need to be with every alternative provision school in the country.

As the APPG has heard, the very best APs work along a continuum of support, offering outreach and advice to schools and pupils upstream to ensure that as many children as possible can stay in mainstream classes while accessing the support they need. They do not want children to go into AP; they want to support them in mainstream schools. That is what great AP schools are doing.

One brilliant example is the Pears Family School, an AP that not only supports pupils excluded from school but draws on its expertise as an AP with a reputation for exceptional parental engagement to build the capacity of mainstream teachers to support those learners in their classrooms. It does that by offering continuous professional development focused on parental engagement, supporting teachers with strategies to engage with parents. Its approach has been found to re-engage disaffected pupils, and it offers holistic support to vulnerable pupils and their families.

Although that is an admirable example of the potential of great AP, I am afraid that it is not yet the norm across the country. Far too many pupils can only to access the support of an AP if they have experienced a school exclusion; it is the last chance they get. As pupils return to school, we need to think about how we build this capacity to elevate the status of APs as respected experts in the education ecosystem.

We cannot, however, elevate the status of AP if we do not invest in it further. I am afraid it is unacceptable that schools for excluded pupils are often totally unsuitable buildings passed down by local authorities—schools that are no longer used for mainstream education. They have all the hallmarks of the last chance saloon. Before coming here, and more recently through the APPG, I have heard and, sadly, seen some horror stories about the buildings the schools are operating out of. I specifically recall visiting buildings on the Wirral when I was a governor in Warrington and seeing smashed windows, walls painted black, and furniture that was around 40 years old. That is not a suitable educational environment for children who have been excluded from mainstream schools.

Some alternative providers are offering education in neglected commercial premises and old converted houses that are simply unfit for purpose. Four in five respondents to the Centre for Social Justice’s AP capital survey said that the facilities in AP were simply not on a par with mainstream schools, and we have heard from parents who say that turning up to AP schools that look like dumping grounds, rather than schools, further raises anxiety about being placed in an AP, not just for parents but for children too. That only serves to reinforce the stigma and anxiety felt by pupils and their families following their AP referral. The review by my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury suggested prioritising AP in any upcoming capital funding. Like many Members, I welcome the Government’s significant investment in improving the quality of the schools estate over the next 10 years, and I will take the opportunity to ask the Minister whether we can please prioritise these settings in the next round of capital funding, and invest significantly in expanding buildings and facilities for pupils who need AP.

I also ask the Minister for some clarity on when the special educational needs and disability review will be published. Although it is essential that the Government take the time to understand the scale and complexity of the changes needed, every delay extends the time in which those children and families are not getting the help they require. We also need some assurances that the SEND review will focus on AP reforms and how to create a system that enshrines APs as experts in the education landscape.

I am aware that the Government have made some progress in some areas, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments rightly recognise that many of the recommendations have been taken forward, but there are many on which we still need urgent action. As such, can the Minister tell us when she expects the AP workforce programme to be published, and what plans there are to establish a practice programme that embeds partnerships, allowing them to intervene earlier through the introduction of a practice improvement fund? Finally, can she tell us what steps have been taken to introduce more substantive training on behaviour issues into initial teacher training and the early career framework? I look forward to hearing her responses, and thank her in advance for addressing Members.