School Exclusions

Jonathan Gullis Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) for securing the debate.

School exclusions are the last resort for any headteacher. In my eight years as a classroom teacher in state secondary schools and as a head of year overseeing the behaviour, attendance and achievement of hundreds of students, exclusions were always the last course of action. I feel a little uneasy in this debate, because intentionally or not, I worry that it undermines the first-class work done by teachers and pastoral staff in the vast majority of schools to keep students in school while placing little to no emphasis on parents or carers. There is not some excluding spree going on; it is not a decision taken lightly. The cost-benefit analysis undertaken by school staff is extensive and manifests in many ways. I have seen headteachers keep in internal exclusion children who should in fact have been excluded, due to a fear of triggering an Ofsted inspection and breeding further stresses for teachers, pupils and parents.

I disagree with the premise that school exclusions are to blame for the rise in knife crime. Of course some young people come from troubled homes and may require extra pastoral care and educational support, but there comes a point when we must award more agency to the actions of our young people and show them that poor behaviour has real-time consequences, both at school and in adulthood. We should unreservedly celebrate schools with high expectations and zero-tolerance policies. We should follow the example set by Michaela Community School in Brent and Magna Academy in Poole, both of which have excellent Ofsted ratings, excellent results and the highest standards of behaviour.

When a child is removed from the classroom and placed in isolation or excluded, it is because their behaviour is damaging the learning of their peers or poses a risk to other students and staff. We have created a culture in schools that means we must try to find an excuse for poor behaviour of young people. It is time we start to back our teachers, not run them down. It is forgotten far too easily that teachers spend the vast majority of their time and energy to help and support the 2% to 3% who display poor behavioural discipline, neglecting for large portions of the school day those pupils who behave correctly and simply want to learn.

[Sarah Jones]

I apologise for speaking again. Does the hon. Gentleman therefore believe that children have become 70% naughtier since 2012? Does that account for the 70% increase in exclusions?

[Jonathan Gullis]

No, I do not believe that children are naughtier. In fact, I think behaviour has improved, which comes from having firm discipline within a school. Students thrive off boundaries that are set and firm, and not moveable. In the early part of my teaching career, I tried to be a friend of the kids, which certainly backfired in my classroom, to the point where I was told to my face to “Eff off” in front of my class. As I developed a firm set of boundaries, I found that my classroom reacted much better; the kids behaved because they knew the expectations. It is important to ensure headteachers set a standard that every teacher meets across the school, therefore creating a culture.

[Sarah Jones]

Does the hon. Gentleman therefore think that young black men from deprived backgrounds are the worst and deserve their higher rates of exclusion from schools—the poorer young black men with special educational needs who are much more likely to be excluded than other groups?

[Jonathan Gullis]

The hon. Lady touches on points regarding special educational needs and disabilities, and I intend to talk about my support for better quality alternative provision. I certainly do not look at this along racial or gender lines or across class lines, because at the end of the day behaviour cuts across all those different things. I represent a predominantly white working-class community, where there are students who misbehave just as much as someone from a black or Asian community in a more ethnically and culturally diverse community. I do not wish to virtue signal. This is an across-the-board problem involving people from all backgrounds.

A child’s environment affects behaviour, so why would a school having firm boundaries be a negative? To exclude a pupil is a long, stressful and convoluted process, and the fear of losing an appeal means that many schools provide a wide range of support, from educational psychologists, peer mentoring, behaviour report, positive behaviour report, incentivised reward trips, one-to-one in-classroom support via a teaching assistant, conflict resolution and regular parent or carer meetings. Those are just some of the many tactics I used in my career to keep a young person on track, but I agree that we must have better alternative provision and ensure that a wider and more tailored system of support is accessible to pupils who have been excluded or are at risk of being excluded. I do not want excluded kids to not have a proper education; I want them to be guided, assisted and supported, but my stronger urge is to protect the education of those willing to be educated and those doing the educating.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

Given the statistical evidence about the number of youngsters with special educational needs who are excluded, is it not the systems within the schools—so not the teachers’ fault—and the resources available to schools, both inside the school and outside, that actually sell those youngsters short? Quite often, their special educational needs are not properly identified until after their exclusion.

[Jonathan Gullis]

The hon. Gentleman brings me on perfectly to what I was about to say. If he will allow me, I will go on, and if I do not answer his point he should feel free to intervene again.

The Government must of course invest in alternative provision, but schools also need to work collaboratively across their local areas to ensure that the best possible course of action is pursued. Solihull Academy is an excellent example of a group of secondary schools across Solihull working together to find tangible, workable solutions, creating Solihull Academy and making space in the grey area between mainstream education and SEND education. To answer the hon. Gentleman’s point, we absolutely have a big issue with children diagnosed with SEND needs who do not need to be in a special educational needs school but struggle to access mainstream school. Solihull Academy is the perfect example of a school that in that grey area, where those students can get proper one-to-one support and smaller class sizes, allowing them to thrive educationally while not feeling the pressure they currently feel in mainstream secondary schools. I hope that answers his point.

[Ian Mearns]

Quoting an example of good practice is all very well, but I am afraid that anecdotes of local good practice do not actually answer the systemic failures across the whole country. In my region, the north-east of England, the number of youngsters excluded from school has gone from about 190 in 2012-13 to well over a thousand in the last year for which statistics are available, 2017-18. The system is failing, and the lack of resources for special educational needs in particular is at the root of the problem.

[Jonathan Gullis]

The Government committed to investing £780 million into supporting SEND children. I firmly believe that schools go above and beyond. Having spent the vast majority of my career in schools where well over 50% of pupils qualify for the pupil premium and well over 30% have SEND needs, I can only commend the actions that have been taken. Obviously I cannot speak for the hon. Gentleman’s constituency or area, but I would be more than happy to sit with him and listen to his examples.

By utilising smaller classes, encouraging more one-to-one contact and broadening the curriculum, extra support will be accessible and available to kids who need it. Reasons for behavioural and social issues in our young people are widely varied and complex. It is reductive to claim that vulnerability, exploitation, youth violence and abuse will be solved by avoiding exclusions. I have been verbally abused and physically assaulted in front of pupils in the classroom, in the playground and in front of parents. The job of a teacher is to educate and to be an example, not to be treated like a punch-bag. Policies and laws are in place to protect our police, emergency workers, nurses and so on. If we do not have zero-tolerance policies or exclusions, where is the protection for our teachers?

[Sarah Jones]

To some extent, we are not disagreeing. I do not think anybody is suggesting that we ban school exclusions or that they are not a really important tool. I do not think I have met a single headteacher who would think for one minute that exclusion does not need to be there as the last resort. The argument we are making is that there has been a huge increase in school exclusions, that there is a reason for that—it has to do with funding and some of the issues about special educational needs in particular—and that we would like to see those numbers go down. Smaller class sizes, more interventions in school and more support for kids would all be brilliant. I think that we agree on those things and I would not want to give the impression that we do not, but my argument is that the levels of exclusions are increasing at a worrying rate and need to come down.

[Jonathan Gullis]

Yes, I find that I normally agree with hon. Members on both sides of the House on what we want to achieve; we just disagree on the method by which we want to achieve that.

I do believe that one issue is attendance. The reasons why kids are not attending school are often overlooked in this context, but again my emphasis is on the young people’s parents and carers, who in my opinion are failing to provide the necessary education outside the school grounds, which undermines what is then done in the classroom by the teacher. In the real world, there are real consequences. I believe that our educational facilities have the responsibility not just to prepare our young people academically, but to teach them that in life, actions have consequences.