Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the potential merits of holding pupils back a year at school as a result of poor (a) behaviour and (b) academic performance.

The information requested is not held centrally, and therefore the Department has made no such assessment.

The Department supports head teachers to create calm and ordered environments so that pupils can benefit from a school culture where teachers can teach and pupils can learn. As part of this, schools must ensure they have and publish a behaviour policy to support staff in managing behaviour, including the use of rewards and sanctions. Sanctions must be proportionate and fair responses that may vary according to the age of the pupils, and any other special circumstances that affect the pupil.

Schools should make regular assessments of progress for all pupils. These should seek to identify pupils making less than expected progress. The first response to such progress should be high quality teaching targeted at their areas of weakness.

Where a child is behaving poorly or is not making the expected progress academically, schools should look to see whether there are underlying factors such as Special Educational Needs, mental health difficulties or issues relating to housing, family or other domestic circumstances. Where a school does identify such causes they are expected to put appropriate support in place, potentially working with other agencies such as Health and Social Care.