School Exclusions

James Murray Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend has anticipated something I was going to say later, which is that many organisations are pushing against the tide and trying to address those difficult issues.

There is a link between children’s family income and exclusion: the worse off a child is economically, the more likely they are to be excluded. Children who are eligible for free school meals are four times more likely to be excluded. There is a link with ethnicity: rates are higher among mixed-race and black pupils. There is a link with gender: males are more than twice as likely to be excluded as females. There is also a link with geography: the rate of permanent exclusions for the most deprived areas is higher than for the least deprived ones. We know that there is a link to what then happens in future life: 42% of adult prisoners and 90% of young offenders were excluded from school.

At the same time as the number of exclusions has increased, the number of pupil referral units and alternative provision academies and free schools has decreased. The number of APs has steadily fallen, from 349 in 2013-14 to 328 in 2017-18, yet the number of pupils has risen year on year. The number of fixed-period exclusions in those schools has risen dramatically, from 15,500 in 2013 to 26,500 in 2017, suggesting a growing inability to cope with the pressures internally.

On the issue of knife crime, there were 44,771 offences in the year ending September 2019. That is the highest figure on record, up from 23,751 for the year ending March 2014—an 88.5% increase over that period. For the year ending March 2019, juveniles—those aged 10 to 17—were the offenders in one in five cases.

I want to say something about our research on the link between knife crime and exclusion. Barnardo’s surveyed all local authorities in England, 80% of which responded, and discovered that one in three councils have no vacant places in their pupil referral units. Even where there is space, there is a postcode lottery in relation to the quality of support provided. Nationally, almost one in five spaces are in alternative provision that Ofsted has rated inadequate or requiring improvement.

It is likely that pupils who are not being educated in the state sector are being educated in non-maintained provision and, as many of us will have seen in our case load, families are sometimes strongly encouraged to home educate. The alternative providers may be offering quality provision—many of them do—but there is also the problem that many of them are not full-time, breaking the statutory obligation to our young people. Every excluded child is legally entitled to full-time education in alternative provision, but our investigation found that that is not happening, with some excluded children getting as little as two hours’ schooling a day.

The system is at breaking point, and not just because of the 70% rise in official exclusions. Research from the IPPR and The Difference revealed that the number of children in AP is five times higher than the number of officially permanently excluded pupils; the true number is around 50,000, with the growing use of managed moves and off-rolling that, again, many of us will have heard about in our case load. The report by the St Giles Trust that I referred to earlier was commissioned by the Home Office. It looked at the issue of children running drugs between London and Kent, and found that 100% of those involved were not in mainstream education; they were either in AP or not in any form of education at all.

The Mayor of London produced research that found that excluded pupils are particularly vulnerable to exploitation and criminal gangs, with nine out of 10 young people in custody in London having been excluded. Research by the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime indicates that pupils in alternative provision are more likely to know someone in a gang or who carries a knife than those in a mainstream setting. Professionals giving evidence to our all-party group believed that criminal gangs are aware of how school exclusions can increase vulnerability and are seeking to exploit this fact. We even heard about pupil referral units where criminals would wait outside and ask people if they wanted to be involved in county lines as they left the unit.

Of course, those strong correlations do not prove that school exclusions are causing knife crime. The fact that someone is excluded does not mean that they will become a criminal, and school exclusion is often a symptom of vulnerability for many years throughout their life. However, there is a common thread running through all the vulnerable children who are being excluded. There is a great deal of commonality between them, because of the issues they face, and those who carry knives. They are not getting the support they need from a system that is catastrophically failing them.

The Timpson review was released last May, but the Government are yet to act on any of its findings. The review had several important findings that chime with those of the all-party group, particularly on off-rolling and the quality of alternative provision. I am sure that the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson) will want to go through that in more detail, but suffice it to say that it is disappointing to see the lack of action on such a crucial issue, having been presented with so many clear recommendations from that report and our all-party group.

The previous Education Secretary, the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), said in 2018 that he would not rule out legislation to ensure more accountability for schools that permanently exclude children and place them in alternative provision. However, there have been no changes to school exclusions legislation in England in the past 12 months. The Government said in response to the Timpson review that they would launch a consultation, but that consultation has yet to be launched. They also said in their response that they would rewrite their guidance on exclusions and behaviour and discipline, which they are yet to do.

[James Murray (Ealing North) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate on such a vital issue. Schools such as Northolt High School in my constituency want to keep the number of exclusions as low as possible. They know the importance of that and they want to do it in a positive and inclusive way, but they need funding. The school has submitted an expression of interest to the Excluded Initiative, which the John Lyon’s Charity is running with the Evening Standard and others, to fund their inclusion programme. Northolt High School should be strongly commended for taking that initiative, but I am concerned that such an important programme may only go ahead if it succeeds in getting charitable funding through a scheme that will no doubt be overbid. If the school’s bid to that initiative is unsuccessful, would she join me in urging the Minister to commit to meeting its excellent headteacher and others who may miss out on such bids, to see whether other funding can be found to support their plans?

[Sarah Jones]

I know that the Minister is always very obliging in agreeing to meetings, so I am sure he will do that. My hon. Friend makes a good point about the Evening Standard campaign; it is very worthy and greatly to be commended, but it is no replacement for what the state should be legally providing for our children.

There were warm words after the Timpson review, but the new Conservative Administration seem to lack any recognition of the link between exclusions and crime, and they seem to be worryingly relaxed about the exclusion of children. The Conservative manifesto put an emphasis on backing headteachers to exclude children and a sinister suggestion of creating secure schools for young offenders, all the while failing to restore the per pupil funding that was cut from our schools.

A greater emphasis on teachers being able to discipline children, 10,000 more prison sentences in place and secure schools for young offenders: these are draconian measures to deal with problems that would be far better dealt with by tackling the underlying causes in the first place. It is blatantly obvious that funding cuts have meant that schools are increasingly unable to properly support the heightened needs of students, particularly those with special educational needs.

When I surveyed headteachers in Croydon, the vast majority had cut SEN funding due to funding issues. It is no wonder that they are then overwhelmed and so many SEN children are excluded. As has already been mentioned, there are many organisations, large and small, working against the tide to try to help the situation, from Another Night of Sisterhood in Croydon—a small organisation that works to try to support parents who do not know how to deal with potential exclusion—to the Mayor of London, who has awarded £4.7 million to areas of London blighted by youth violence to prevent pupils from being excluded.

I again pay tribute to the Evening Standard’s £1 million campaign, The Excluded, which aims to encourage greater inclusion in schools by funding inclusion units. Some 57 applications from local schools have already been made. The scheme is modelled on what was done in Glasgow alongside the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit, where exclusions were reduced by 85%, and on pioneering London schools such as Dunraven in Lambeth.

Turning to what needs to be done, our all-party group’s investigation concluded last year and made a series of recommendations, which I hope the Minister will look at. Perhaps he would agree to meet the all-party group to discuss their implementation. School rankings and results must take account of all pupils, including those they exclude. All excluded children must have access to the full-time education to which they are legally entitled, which many do not currently get.

All education providers must have the funding and backing they need to support vulnerable children, and schools must be recognised for the central role they play in a multi-agency response to keeping children safe, with funding to support that work. Everyone working in the education sector must be trained to understand vulnerability and trauma. I have been on trauma training, and it really does change the way you view a child; anger is a cry for help, and understanding the issues is enormously useful for teaching. Schools should be supported to focus on prevention and early intervention, and every council should have a leader responsible for children excluded from school.

We know these things can be done. In Scotland only five pupils were permanently removed from the classroom in 2016-17, and in South Tyneside exclusion rates have fallen by almost 60% over the past 10 years. Wandsworth used to have one of the highest rates of permanent school exclusions but now has one of the lowest. Schools in my constituency, such as St. Mary’s Roman Catholic High School, manage to exclude tiny numbers of people despite a challenging intake and challenging issues.

My questions for the Minister are as follows. Fundamentally, does he recognise the issues that I am talking about, and does he want to see a reduction in school exclusions, or is he happy to continue to see an increase at this rate? Why are so many vulnerable children getting less support than they would in mainstream schools, especially since in many cases excluded children are exactly the children who need more support? Will he conduct a review into capacity within alternative provision and part-time education, to understand whether there are enough resources to ensure that all pupils who are excluded get the full-time provision to which they are legally entitled? Given that half of all excluded children have special educational needs, what steps is he taking to make up for the vast funding cuts seen to SEN support?

The Education Committee’s knife crime inquiry concluded that schools play a central role in providing prevention and early intervention through a multi-agency response to keeping children safe. Violent crime has doubled in recent years, with more and more young people dying on our streets. There is no single causal factor when it comes to knife crime—if there were, we would have solved it before now. We need to look at this epidemic from every possible angle and focus on preventing crime before it occurs. Exclusions must be a last resort, and alternative provision must be full-time, high-quality and properly resourced. We can cure the epidemic of youth violence if we start from the principle that no child is left behind.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Gibb]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. Analysis has shown that excluded children have a higher risk of being a victim or perpetrator of crime, but although there is a strong correlation between those two issues, we have to be careful to not draw a simple causal link. The evidence does not suggest that exclusion causes children to be involved in crime; what it does suggest is that engagement in education is a strong protective factor for children who might otherwise be vulnerable to involvement in crime. It is therefore vital that schools and colleges enable all children to achieve, to belong, and to remain safe in education. That is the part played by the Department for Education in a wider cross-Government approach to tackle crime and serious violence. We will continue to work closely with other Departments, including the Home Office, to ensure that young people remain safe.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North pointed out, the focus must be on attendance, which research suggests is associated with risky behaviour linked to serious youth violence. Ministry of Justice research on the educational background of young knife-possession offenders showed that 83% had been persistently absent in at least one of the previous five years; overall, school attendance has improved significantly since 2010. That is why we have put such an emphasis on ensuring that children attend school.

Headteachers are best placed to judge what extra support may be needed in their school. Ofsted’s new inspection framework continues to include consideration of the reasons for exclusions and their rates and patterns, as well as any differences between pupil groups, as referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury. Inspectors also consider evidence of off-rolling, and they are likely to judge a school to be inadequate if there is evidence that pupils have been removed from the school without a formal permanent exclusion, which my hon. Friend has also mentioned as a concern.

[James Murray]

The Minister has referred to the role that headteachers play in deciding what support they need to make sure exclusions are as low as possible. I reiterate my comment about Northolt High School in my constituency, where the headteacher has applied through the Excluded Initiative for charitable funding to help with some of its inclusion work. If that school is unsuccessful in its bid, would the Minister agree to meet its excellent headteacher and others who may be unsuccessful in their bids to discuss what other funding might be found to support their plans?

[Nick Gibb]

I am happy to meet the headteacher in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency to discuss these issues; I always learn something in those meetings, and they can be extremely helpful. However, I point out that we are increasing high-needs funding by 12% and overall school funding by 5% this year alone, with a three-year settlement, and that school funding will rise to £52 billion by the end of that three-year settlement period.

Nothing I have said detracts from the fact that for the one child in 1,000 who is permanently excluded, their exclusion is a sign that something has gone seriously wrong. Without the right support, vulnerable children and young people can be left at risk of harm, including becoming involved in serious violence. We need to offer those children a fresh start—a school that can re-engage them with their education. For many excluded pupils, that will mean alternative provision. Good alternative provision offers excluded pupils a second chance to develop those core skills and readiness for adult life.