Tuesday 4 September 2018

Real reason for school exclusions

Having worked with headteachers who refused to exclude pupils for exhibiting outrageous behaviour, I have sympathy with underfunded and understaffed state schools disclosing what are nevertheless "deeply concerning rates of exclusions" (Revealed: dozens of schools excluding one in five pupils, 01/09/18). Two points, however, are particularly revealing. Firstly, in defence of the school which has "excluded as many as 41% of its pupils", the academy trust`s spokesman immediately directed attention to GCSE results and the fact that the school had been "turned around", resulting in the school being "oversubscribed". How effective has government propaganda since 2010 been in convincing parents that a school`s position in league tables should be what matter most, regardless of everything else going on.
   The second point is the role played by Ofsted, which had praised the same school "for bringing about change and improvement". Ofsted`s regional director for the north-east, Yorkshire and the Humber might well write to headteachers complaining about the high rates of exclusions, but fails to see that the inspectorate`s judgement of schools being far too reliant on examination results is the most significant factor in bringing about the increase. It is no coincidence that a Children`s Society report has revealed that children and teenagers are "facing an intolerable mental health crisis" (Schools need money urgently to deal with mental health crisis, 01/09/18). The sad fact is that we have a government that just doesn`t care!

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