No more exclusions and sexual violence in schools

So then, move them to a better school for them. Don't exclude them.
And take account of the girls in AP plus the very large numbers of female teachers.

Having worked in school with very vulnerable children and in PRUs with even more vulnerable children. It is my deeply held conviction that there needs to be tiered provision that is different from main stream for the 1. Safety of all involved and 2. To give children with complex needs a chance to thrive.

Let us be real, the children who are getting excluded have serious mental health issues where they do not conform to the necessary behaviour that allows large groups of children to learn.

They swear, hit, spit, bring knives in, disrupt, don’t sit down, shout, run, disseminate pornography, intimidate- absolutely they deserve an education and opportunity (see my professional experience above) but not at the expense of every child who can behave and wants to learn. Not to mention the extreme stress on teachers dealing with the extreme behaviour and dysfunctional parents that really goes above and beyond what should be expected from a generalist main stream teacher.

Do you mean 1:1 teaching, just in the same building as the victim of the sexual assault? So that she has to live with the fear of bumping into him?

I agree that he has the right to continue his education. But I think he's lost the right to continue it in that particular setting. There have to be alternatives. The alternatives might include taxis and 1:1 supervision, but in a different location.

It should be possible to achieve separate teaching without exclusion, shouldn't it?

How does that meet the very clear need of the victim to feel safe? How can that child or young person feel safe, knowing that the perpetrator is in the same building, when they must attend that building every single day of the school year? Where, and how, are her own needs being considered, far less met, in this analysis?

If there is any even slight harassment, even borderline comments, this is the point at which prevention should come into place. And if one boy has harassed or assaulted someone, proper training on toxic masculinity should be happening immediately. Excluding one boy will be no deterrent at all to others - a school that has excluded a boy for sexual assault and "read the riot act" to the others is still an unsafe school for girls.

This is the same argument used as to why women don't need single sex provision. The problem is toxic masculinity, so let's address that in a fantasy world where everyone agrees that the slightest comment or joke should be instantly leapt upon (and who decides where that boundary lies, anyway - or who is telling the truth, in reporting such comments?)... and meanwhile, women can suck up the risk while we all await utopia.

The same misplaced belief that you can train someone out of being predatory led to such sessions in prisons. The ones that were found to increase offending behaviour, upon release. By the time a teenager is sexually assaulting peers, it's a tad late to try 'proper training on toxic masculinity'. They need a level of support and intervention that is not available in the local secondary school, and nor can it be.

A new setting and a new start is required for any perpetrator, with a support level calibrated at trying to prevent reoffending. And the mental health needs of the victim should come first. That means providing a space that feels one hell of a lot safer than any can, with the presence of the perpetrator.

1:1 provision in a mainstream, and otherwise social isolation, is not inclusion, anyway. It's not going to do a damn thing to support or change their behaviour. Kids who do this sort of thing to a level where exclusion is deemed proportionate need a therapeutic environment and proper oversight, not just leaving in a mainstream setting to prove an ideological point.

Why do we treat children in a way we wouldn't consider acceptable as adults? If I was sexually assaulted by a work colleague, I wouldn't expect my employer to force me to continue working alongside him. Why should a girl who's been sexually assaulted by a boy have to stay in the same classroom as him?

It should be possible to achieve separate teaching without exclusion, shouldn't it?

On the school bus? In the corridors? In a small school?

I think they’ve come out of an amalgamation of the NUT and something else.

(I should know I’m in them 😂)

Thanks Delirium. I've never heard of the National Education Union, although I would generally be familiar with the various main teachers' unions over a number of years.

I absolutely agree that sexual assault is a line which if crossed there can be no alternative than exclusion. Anything else risks the victim either physically self excluding (not attending or changing schools) or even internally self excluding by having to constantly disassociate from their feelings of distress triggered by the presence of the abusive boy.

However on the subject of exclusions per se I think it's tricky. Of course it isn't good if schools give up on pupils too quickly. However some children have needs that simply aren't well catered for by mainstream schools. Special schools can be amazing places offering a tailored education to multiple needs and the chance of genuine peer relationships for their pupils. There still seems such a stigma to them which I think leaves some pupils being badly catered for in mainstream for too long. Although I know this is also because it can be hell for parents to get the council to agree to find provision.

A friend of mine works in a school proud of its record of no exclusions. She says the reality is there's a handful of kids who spend almost all the time having their lessons separately in a tiny room. I don't think this approach does enough to address the core problems that lead to the bad behaviour in the first place. It seems more like its preparing those kids for prison.

Sorry, it’s very easy to just go with the jargon.

I am very dissapointed about NME this in relation to sexual assualt as its not reasonable to expect a victim to be taught along side their rapist. Its also very different than some of the main reasons children get excluded. I have had a lot of time for NME prior to this for the reasons listed by DrSpouse.

Ah, I see someone has helpfully translated NME. I couldn't get New Musical Express out of my head and some of the other abbreviations on this thread mean absolutely nothing. NEU, SEMH etc. There's about one out of six I could figure out or make a good guess at: NUHT.

Also reading my post back I may have been unclear -
One child, whilst with us, behaved impeccably. This doesn’t excuse his past or alter the fact that in other scenarios he could still be a danger to others but the few times he was with us he did nothing wrong and nothing occurred that needed any further action, whereas another boy caused problems (which I’m not down playing but will not discuss further on a public board for obvious reasons).

I’m not saying he was not a threat but at the time we had him no incidents of any kind (including sexualised language) occurred.

I hope that makes sense.

Whether he was a threat elsewhere I can’t answer but he didn’t come into contact with any girls whilst with us and unlike the other student didn’t harm anyone.

Obviously I can’t say what he has been like elsewhere.

And the situation was not ideal but as much as possible was in place to keep everyone else safe.

Well, the solution (which should include prevention of further incidents) may well differ, so it is different in some senses.

@TreestumpsAndTrampolines

If there was a child who was victimising another, who was attempting to assault another (sexually or otherwise) intentionally, rather than as a result of not really thinking/heat of the moment, or if the heat of the moment child wasn't being supported to stop those incidents, then I think that crosses the line, and exclusion (but then helping the parents find a suitable alternative, not just abandoning them) must be the solution for all concerned

Because "heat of the moment" sexual assault really just isn't as serious is it?

That's exactly the same belief that mens that a man gets 10 years for strangling a woman to death.

Well why dont NME start to tell us what that other way might be, so that we can discuss it. And ask them how we would measure the effectiveness of their plan, or is it purely dogma to stop exclusion, but not stop violence?

There is a good deal of research in how to reduce exclusions in schools.
Exclusions increase violence. They just move it out of the first school that the child was in. And may not even do that, if it has no deterrent effect on children who remain in school; they may be escalating behaviour in children who remain in school because they aren't doing anything to address it other than exclude children once it's happened.

I think this is tricky, but I think that there is definitely a line across which it isn't right to have an abused pupil see their abuser every day at school, and that for a child who crosses that line, it's potentially not safe for staff and other pupils either.

For example, in my DS2's class (primary), there's 3 kids with some issues - the school is handling it very well - working with the parents, having extra support for those children, having strategies around it all, the rest of the class is aware, and asked to be tolerant, but also supported in their boundaries around obviously not wanting to be hit by these kids. This is normal stuff. If there was a child who was victimising another, who was attempting to assault another (sexually or otherwise) intentionally, rather than as a result of not really thinking/heat of the moment, or if the heat of the moment child wasn't being supported to stop those incidents, then I think that crosses the line, and exclusion (but then helping the parents find a suitable alternative, not just abandoning them) must be the solution for all concerned.

I have a family member who went to a special school when at primary, then was in a high school with a special needs unit for secondary. I understand why it's done, but I think that it didn't do him much good - I think that some children it would have been great for, but as children have individual needs, they need individual solutions.

Exclusions don't work.
They don't make children reduce their unacceptable behaviour (whether that's a primary age child reacting aggressively to feeling unsafe or a secondary child engaging in illegal behaviour).
They disproportionally affect children from BAME backgrounds and those with disabilities (my DS was PEx in year 3 he has ADHD and children with ADHD are 8 times more likely to be excluded, for ASD I think it's 4x).
They just push the problem on to another educational setting (the point about girls in PRUs is spot on, but some will just be going to another mainstream school). Some boys will have abused other boys so a single sex school isn't going to help as a blanket solution (plus most settings will have female staff).
I agree that victims shouldn't have to fear seeing their assailant (where that child is a genuine assailant, I don't think that excluding a child like my DS who pushed some other children is helping those children to learn how to co-exist with children with disabilities). But there must be another way to reduce this behaviour - exclusion doesn't do that.

NME is No More Exclusions.

... I have worked with kids who have committed sexual assault, one posed no threat..

Could you explain a bit more how a child who has committed sexual assault is not a threat?