The Final Deprivation
The Scottish Executive’s statistics on the number of exclusions from school during the academic year 2003/04 were published recently. They revealed an overall increase of 7% in the number of exclusions, following the abandoning of Executive targets to reduce these numbers mid-way through the year. Astonishingly, this news has been greeted with widespread approval from politicians and teaching unions alike.
Why on earth should the news that our schools are excluding more children be greeted as good news?
This disturbing increase comes hot on heels of comments by Professor Sheila Riddell of Moray House that too many boys, looked after pupils and children from deprived homes are being excluded ("Exclusion hits the vulnerable hardest", TES Scotland, 11 February 2005).
The popular perception that indiscipline is rife in Scottish schools makes it easy for politicians to hail the increase as evidence of a zero-tolerance policy towards violence in the classroom. However, where the casual observer might see recalcitrant delinquents behind the statistics, on closer inspection they tell a quite different story.
Pupils who are entitled to free school meals are four times more likely to be excluded than pupils who are not. Pupils looked after by the authority are 5 times more likely to be excluded than those who are not. Pupils with special educational needs in secondary schools are 3 times more likely to be excluded than those without such needs. Poverty, social need and disability are three of the most reliable indicators for likelihood of exclusion. Scotland’s most vulnerable children are also those most likely to be excluded from school.
And what awaits these pupils on their exclusion from school? In most cases, nothing at all. Every exclusion from school imposes a legal duty on the education authority to provide alternative education for the pupil excluded “without undue delay”. Most exclusions last for at least a week and yet in over 92% of cases no alternative provision is made at all – not even homework is sent. This wholesale disregard for the legal responsibilities which accompany an exclusion cannot inspire any confidence that head teachers or education authorities are taking the effects of exclusion on pupils seriously. This is cause for concern, not celebration.
Clearly there is a place for exclusion in the array of disciplinary sanctions available to schools. But it is supposed to be used only as a last resort. And if the concern is indiscipline, why is exclusion so often used in circumstances where it will have no effect on a pupil’s behaviour, or even make it worse? Too often disabled pupils are excluded for reasons related to their disabilities. Too often pupils are excluded for minor or trivial incidents which should not be beyond the ability of a school to deal with “in-house” and without resorting to the nuclear option. Too often pupils who are not engaging with school are excluded with no educational provision made for them. This has the obvious and inevitable result that they return to school having missed a week’s lessons and become even more disengaged than before. Too often Head Teachers exclude pupils with special needs simply in order to communicate to the education authority that their school lacks resources or personnel.
Parents and older pupils have a right of appeal against an exclusion from school. Many pupils are unaware of their right of appeal. Many parents see no point in an appeal which is incapable of restoring to the pupil the lessons lost to them. Few have much confidence in the impartiality of the education appeal committee. In the absence of an effective remedy, and now in the absence of Ministerial encouragement to reduce reliance on exclusion from school, Head Teachers have carte blanche to exclude. That freedom has seen exclusion decisions which range from reasonable and necessary to unreasonable, unnecessary, counter-productive and damaging.
It is difficult to see how the Scottish education system can adhere to the National Priority of inclusion, while at the same time lauding an increase in exclusion – especially when the vast majority of exclusions unlawfully deny pupils access to alternative educational provision.
Iain Nisbet
Head of Education Law, Govan Law Centre
TES Scotland, 11 March 2005