Exclusion Rule Broken Says OFSTED

Schools and councils in England are breaking the law by failing to educate pupils who have been excluded, according to inspectors.

A small Ofsted study found that about a third of schools and almost half of local authorities were not providing full-time education for pupils.

The "day six" rule makes schools responsible for short-term exclusions, local authorities for permanent ones.

Increasingly, schools have been excluding for shorter periods.

For their study, inspectors visited 28 secondary, five primary and three special schools, 16 pupil referral units (PRUs) and two other places for permanently excluded pupils in 18 local authorities last autumn.

Ofsted's report said this small sample size meant generalisations should not be drawn from the findings.

Eight of the 28 secondary schools and two of the three special schools surveyed did not comply with the requirements to provide suitable and full-time education, it said.

Six schools provided education on their own sites but failed to share the arrangements with partnership schools - a breach of the regulations.

They felt more able to ensure continuity for pupils' learning if they provided exclusively for their pupils on their own site.

All but two of the 18 local authorities identified their own PRU as being the provision from day six for permanently excluded pupils.

But a lack of capacity meant eight of them did not provide full-time and suitable education there.

Published statistics show the number of short-term exclusions has risen by more than 80,000 since 2003-04 to 425,600 in 2006-07.

A large majority of these were in secondary schools. Children's rights campaigners point out that most of those excluded have special educational needs.

Ofsted found that in 23 of the 28 secondary schools it looked at, the number of fixed-period exclusions of six days or more fell between 2006-07 and 2007-08, markedly so in 19 of them.

"Schools had responded to the day six requirements by deciding not to exclude as many pupils for longer periods," Ofsted said.

"They put greater emphasis on prevention."

For example, one (unnamed) school had internal provision for children it felt were at risk of exclusion, run in partnership with a neighbouring school.

Pupils generally spent between six and 12 weeks there and had a phased reintroduction to mainstream lessons when they were ready.

It was an alternative to longer fixed-period exclusions and removed the need for "day six" provision.

Early intervention aimed at preventing the need for exclusions is the policy being pursued in Scotland, where exclusions have been declining.

In a dozen areas effective guidance meant schools "were able to set up day six provision that supported pupils well", Ofsted said.

The inspectorate urged the Department for Children, Schools and Families to publish such examples of good practice.

The general secretary of the ASCL head teachers' union, Dr John Dunford, had warned that this would happen when the regulations were changed in 2007 and is calling now for the "six day" rule to be changed.

He said: "The rules on exclusions and behaviour partnerships between schools were introduced with a promise of extra delegated funding to improve provision at school level.

"In most parts of the country, this has not happened, so schools have had to rely on established procedures or spend their own budget on internal referral units."

Chris Keates of the NASUWT teachers' union said: "The provision of full time education after the sixth day of exclusion was always going to be difficult for schools.

"They now find themselves between a rock and a hard place.

"If they exclude for less than six days they are condemned for too many short term exclusions. If they exclude for over six days they are accused of failing to meet the needs of pupils."

Children's Minister Delyth Morgan said: "We accept Ofsted's report and recommendations and we will be supporting schools by gathering and disseminating examples of good practice in meeting the day six legislation to suit a range of situations."

She added: "Exclusion from school should not mean exclusion from education, and it is clearly right that children should be given a suitable education after they have been excluded."

Local authorities should ensure there was sufficient good quality provision.

"It is crucial that schools intervene early to help those pupils at risk and therefore preventing the need for exclusions in the first place."

Shadow schools minister Nick Gibb said: "This report confirms that the government's rules limiting teachers' powers are having a significant and harmful effect on their flexibility to keep order.

"It's vital that heads should have the power to remove violent and disruptive pupils from the classroom. We have pledged to scrap the bureaucracy which makes it harder for them to do so."