Stop / reduce suspensions for disruptive and vulnerable children

[HooverIsAlwaysBroken]

https://amp.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/jul/20/english-schools-to-phase-out-cruel-behaviour-rules-as-labour-plans-major-education-changes

I would be interested in what people think about this. Being shy and bullied (and very academic) as a child, I would be inclined to feel sorry for the children who just are trying to learn. I would also assume that this will make it much harder for the teachers…

of course the vulnerable and disruptive children need support but is this the right way? My DS is very disruptive and has had numerous detentions but never a suspension. I would assume that the bar for that already is very high? But happy to be told otherwise.

The above post nails it. There is not a single penny of funding to reduce exclusions. The basic message is to just exclude less kids. This makes schools less safe and less and less about learning.

Yes, or the teacher coming into work with a black eye saying 'last night my husband punched me, called me a fucking cunt then. smashed up the house' the responses would be 'what did you not do for him/give to him? Let's see what you need to do to stop you causing this' ?

‘yes I robbed the bank but it’s because I have ADHD” isn’t suddenly going to become a legal defence is it? So consequences and rules have to stay.’

I wouldn’t be so sure.

There isn’t any money. And if any money does become available it will be spent elsewhere.

It’s not that Rome wasn’t built in a day, it’s that Shangri-La was never built.

Absolutely. Consistency (behaviour management, routines) and the building of relationships (with both students and fellow staff) is key to a good classroom learning environment. Unfortunately when this breaks down it can mean a race to the bottom as far as challenging behaviour/teacher morale goes. In some schools teachers don't feel safe and a consistently applied behaviour policy which does include suspensions and when absolutely necessary, exclusions is a necessary part of this. In my experience, every effort is made to avoid off rolling in primary, however many secondary schools lack the resource to put into pupils who are disruptive. Unfortunately, some parents don't parent and schools struggle to pick up all of the slack.

The bottom line is that funding is abysmal and that the root causes of disruptive and vulnerable children is not being addressed.

Excluding these children does not take away the long term impact on the children who are not disruptive or vulnerable. The risk to excluded children is: unemployment, crime, poverty; which affects all of society in one way or another.

Coming from the other side, my child has been hurt frequently by one of the kids in her class. There are two that are very disruptive - one with significant needs diagnosed and not sure about the other. One of the kids seems to go for my daughter, the other another little girl. I am deeply pissed off with it quite frankly. The extent of ‘consequences’ seem to basically being taken out of the classroom constantly while the other kids have to put up with being sworn at, kicked, punched until they’re removed. They clearly can’t function in mainstream with the current level of support and it’s not fair on anyone. It’s clear that there needs to be a massive injection of cash to support sen and challenging behaviour not just hoping an already stretched system can cope.

Oh and added to that our county has a policy of refusing EHCP funding and seemingly have to be taken to JR to get any funding. Not everyone has the support or ability to take the council to court so they get away with not appropriately funding schools for the level of need. The whole thing is a disgrace really.

That's the impact of the behaviour that lead to exclusion, not the exclusion itself. So don't really see the relevance. Not excluding isn't going to magically morph those children into Fred Rogers.

I agree with you, too.

Education is in an awful state across the board, mainstream and special education, and there is no end in sight at the moment.

Sadly, the worst affected are the children who aren't getting what they need to succeed in life someday, which means society as a whole suffers.

But ‘proper support’ has become a completely unenforceable mishmash of enabling and permissive measures which frankly do not prepare them for the outside world. All they do is appease the child rather than teach them how to conform to the classroom environment and society.

This. At our local school 1/3rd of pupils have a good pass for maths and English. A leafy Wiltshire school has 55% passing. Safeguarding pupils so that they don't experience intimidation from other pupils is of course of foremost importance, however the added impact of behaviour on their learning has a big effect on their qualifications and life opportunities. Of course there should be funding and provision for the pupils who struggle with self-regulation etc, however the quiet studious pupils also deserve a good education.

We also need to start having some clear facts on these threads.

Education is not underfunded, we spend broadly in line with all comparable countries and more than Switzerland and Germany.

SEN is not underfunded. We spend £10 billion a year and given 62p out of every £1 of council funding is spent on social care, there is very little argument to increase it (only 4p goes on social housing management).

We need to address the elephant in the room which is the spiralling number of children with SEN and why we have reached a place where out of 9 million school age kids, 1 in 18 have an EHCP and 1 in 5 have SEN.

Until we do, this is just an unaffordable sticking plaster.

So, do we need to look at other European countries with a similar infrastructure to us, maybe?

What % of SEN do they have?
Whats their equivalent of SEN support/EHCP and how is that funded?
What % of pupils are in special schools? Are there huge waiting lists for these?
What is general pupil wellbeing like for those in mainstream?
Where are their pupils with high need? If they are in mainstream? What does their day/provision/support look like?

Whats their teacher workload/wellbeing/curriculum/retention like? If this is popular/good-what can we copy?! If they don’t have a high-stakes inspectorate regime but are doing well with happy children and teachers and good results, do we need one!?

Do their school budgets mean that experienced teachers are regularly bullied out because they’re too expensive, or are they actually valued!

I'm surprised you could write that with a straight face. Schools and education was deliberately defunded by the last government over 14 years. They stoped investing. It was driven by their low tax mantra with no thought to the low term consequences. Capacity and capability within schools was bleed dry. And now you have a situation where borderline cases requiring mild interventions result in EHCP applications as this the only means schools have to get extra funding. To the extent we spend what we spend today.

Off like to hear your proposal though for magicking away the needs of children with SEN. Let me guess. Exclusion and borstal to keep the costs down and pretend is not happening.

my understanding is that Covid (school closures) also have had a massive impact on behaviour and the ability of some children to have functioning relationships. This is anecdotal but explained to me by my DC’s teachers.

my DS has been going to a private school but we are moving to state as the VAT is impossible for us. He is very bright (top of his class) but with a strong tendency to be disruptive and misbehaving in a cheeky way (huge number of detentions but never a suspension). He can behave with strict discipline, a stress ball and the use of a calm room occasionally to regulate behaviour.

I actually asked DS about his thoughts on this and he thought it would be an absolute mayhem. A lot of boys in his school are able to behave - and will with the right discipline/consequences - but are hugely prone to running wild if they think they can get away with it.

DS just laughed at the thought of teachers being less able to impose consequences- but also felt very sorry for the “nerds”. Apparently some boys are low key bullying them (Stealing pens and books, drawing on their workbooks), only controlled by detentions/consequences.

That’s very interesting. I suspect there’s more to the broad figures than meets the eye. But they’re very instructive nonetheless.

Right so some people don't want their kids in special schools for legitimate reasons, but equally parents don't want these kids in their schools also for legitimate reasons. Why do the disruptive kids get priority over the kids who just want to learn

I’m sorry that happened to you. I had a tough time when I was younger and no one knew outside the home. However, you would be supported now. Schools are notified by police when they are called to a home. I support many children in a similar position and provide school uniform, food, toiletries etc. I take donations from friends of nice clothes their own children have outgrown and give them to children in my care. Any good pastoral team at a school would do the same and those children are not punished.

Back in the day we had Mr Black with his belt and let me tell you, he only had to take it out of the drawer and lay it on the desk, and everyone got their head down and completed the task.

DS just laughed at the thought of teachers being less able to impose consequences

:(

Education is not underfunded, we spend broadly in line with all comparable countries and more than Switzerland and Germany.

There's a difference between underfunding compared to other countries, and underfunding compared to what it needs to run effectively.

For example, if other countries do not have the same expectation that all of societal ills will be sorted by schools, and instead properly fund external SEN, health and mental health services, then their schools will function adequately on less money. If they have properly funded pre-school intervention and support services (like the old Surestart) then they will need less funding for primary schools to pick up the pieces of children coming to school unsocialised, in nappies, with speech and language problems. If they have a society where child poverty isn't through the roof (unlike ours) then they won't need as much money for funding food, clothing and school supplies for children, or resources to narrow the disadvantage gap.

If schools are expected to do more, then they will need more money than schools which are expected to do less.

But the answer is to find out why we need so much more money to reach a baseline of education? The answer to a lot of it seems to be early years and shocking parenting

Have you looked at the child poverty figures lately?

So what’s happening with parenting/early years in the countries that’s working.

Are both parents generally working? What is their childcare like-how much is it costing them as a percentage of their income? How much has their income been affected by rising interest rates/energy bills? Can they access early help-HV or speech and language provision for their child where needed? How many are in poverty/unable to buy uniform (do they have uniform?), visiting food banks regularly?