Is 'exclusion' from school permanent or temporary?

[sandyballs]

When I was at school 'suspension' was temporary and 'expulsion' was permanent. What is 'exclusion'.

[difficultpickle]

I think exclusion can be either - temporary for a fixed amount of time or permanent.

[Sparklingbrook]

It depends on the 'crime' possibly. I found out last week that in this area you can get 'expelled' to another school for 10 weeks.

I was at High School in the 80s and it was the same as you have said then sandy.

[EvilTwins]

It's a generic term. Fixed term exclusion can be anything from 1 day upwards. Permanent exclusion is what would have been called "expelled" when I was at school.

[admission]

It is only an official exclusion if the head teacher makes the decision and the parents receive an official letter stating they have been excluded, either fixed term or permanently. The reason I say this is there is trend in schools to ave what they call internal exclusion, where pupils are put into some kind of special room and expected to work away from their normal class. This is not an official exclusion but for many parents and even schools the line gets very blurred.
The maximum amount of fixed term exclusion in any one academic year is 45 days, as soon as they go over the 45 days they are deemed to be permanently excluded. It is very easy to argue that exclusion of this length is not achieving anything other than keeping the kid out of the school.
What sparklingbrook is talking about is officially called a managed move but their version of it was certainly not how it was intended to be from their previous posts on the subject.

[marriedinwhite]

So should parents of hardworking, well behaved children, be complaining to governors about internal exclusions then that keep dysfunctional childen who have engaged in criminal behaviours in state schools, disrupting, diluting achieveing and bringing a bad influence and much unhappiness upon the majority.

surely there have to be permanent consequences or we will end up with anarchy. how is it right to teach young people that criminality will be overlooked in schools? How does this help young people when they move on to other forms of education or to the workplace? How is this helping society overall?

[sandyballs]

Thanks for replies

[admission]

Marriedinwhite,
I think the answer is, it depends. For a good number of pupils who overstep the mark because they have not been given or understood the line beyond which they should not go, an internal exclusion can be a very good deterrent and exactly the sharp rap on the knuckles to resolve the problem.
However for the persistent offender, there comes a point where internal exclusion has no fear, it is just seen by pupils as an easy option. At that juncture there is no point to an internal exclusion, other than keeping pupils out of the main classrooms and therefore disturbing other pupils. I agree with you that the suggestion to the pupil is that they can just keep re-offending, knowing that the punishment has no real consequence.
The question then becomes one of does an official exclusion make any difference or is it just seen as an internal exclusion but with the day spent at home and to be honest I don't know. I suspect for many it is just a day off school. At that point the school has a decision to make, keep them in school in one way or another or permanently exclude in the hope that this will have some positive effect. The available data would suggest that once outside the school system, the move to criminal activity is very easy and frequently happens, especially if they are not daily attenders of school or some other facility (PRU?)

[marriedinwhite]

But surely the problem admissions is that although deeply sad in relation to one child, perhaps the worst offender, if there is a permanent consequence it might "save" three or four who are on the fringes. The minority might descend into criminal activity but would it not be better to deal with the impact on the minority than to "accept" the constant dilution, the impact on others, the effect of constant disruption on the majority of lowered grades and lower achievement.

[RiversideMum]

I think criminal behaviour is something that should be treated differently than generally being a complete prat.

[Veritate]

The interesting thing is that we are only of the only countries in the Western world that uses exclusions at all. In other countries, including some with extremely good education results, they seem to reckon that it is really up to the schools to manage difficult and disruptive pupils without chucking them out, and so they do.