Being sent to pupil referral unit

[messybedhead]

My friend's daughter's school has requested a meeting about putting her into the local pupil referral unit.

Nothing is in writing, and her parents are not happy about this decision.

We do not know how to fight this; does she have to go there if that is what the school suggests?

Are there any procedures that need to be followed or any school policies we can request that will explain this further?

Thanks.

So pleased to read your positive experience of one PRU RetiredGoth. DD3 went to a PRU and it was fantastic and she would not be anywhere near where she is today if she had not had the care and support she was given there.
I was so impressed I am now on the management committee and do a bit of voluntary work with the team, too.

I would also urge your friend to go along and meet the staff, ask questions and get a feel for the place. It could be the best place for her DC for a while.

x-post with retired goth and a thousand others!

yes i would ask how long on average the other children have been in the PRU, that might give an idea what is going on.
have been in some lovely, homely and supportive prus which lack some of the irritating institutionalised (sorry spelling) rules of school and also some quite scary ones too.

First of all - thanks for reminding me about The Wedding Present.

Now, to business...

Your friends DO have a choice about their daughter. I take it the exclusions were "temporary" (obviously) and for a day or so, and then she was allowed back into her mainstream school (after an interview?)

The risk is that she does something v bad and gets a "permanent" exclusion and then isn't allowed to finish her education at her regular school... Then things can get v tricky and governors etc get involved...

The other thing that can happen is that their daughter has a "managed move" to another school in the area, where she sees if she fits in for a few weeks, but isn't taken off-roll at her first school. If it works out, she stays, if not she returns.

Or she can try out the PRU, but if I were the family, I would make sure noting permanent happens at this stage.

• Just to cover myself, I may be a little bit out of date with all the latest rules and regs but think am pretty current.

Good luck.

Thank you I will show her what you have all said.

Its especially interesting about the "managed move" thing as we didn't know about that.

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2007/dec/11/pupilbehaviour.schools

a few examples.

DS2 has also been to a PRU and it was a good environment for him. He has SN which at the time wasn't being met at his m/s school and the small classes at the PRU and structured setting was certainly better than m/s provision. However, they are used to seeing behavioural problems caused by parenting/social circumstances so their approach wasn't entirely appropriate for his SN. In our LA, a lot of students with unmet/undiagnosed SN end up in the PRUs.

PRUs do get inspected by Ofsted so I would encourage your friend to look up the reports and also make a visit.

They might also want to read some background information on PRUs - White Paper on Modernising Alternative Provision and Guidance for LAs on PRUs. They are good when they're used as a temporary provision to deal with short-term behavioural problems, but they can also be used as a bit of a dumping ground. The parents may need to be proactive in pushing for regular review meetings to decide what support needs to be put in place to allow the child to go back to mainstream. DS2 should have been in a PRU for a few months but ended up spending a year there.

PRUs don't have the same legal status as schools, have a different management structure, don't have to run the NC and often focus on core/vocational skills as it's common for their pupils to come with below-average scores. The links above give more detail about what is different about them. If the child is at secondary age, I would ask about the curriculum policy and number of hours of provision. It may well not have specialist facilities that a mainstream school has (science, art, PE etc).

I agree with others in that the socio-economic mix is what you'd expect and the child could end up picking up bad habits/getting bullied. Fortunately I found that the staffing ratios meant that DS2 was quite well protected and they knew when he'd be vulnerable.

Agree that many dc who end up in PRUs have undiagnosed special needs, ime it's even more likely with girls. Many are very good, some aren't, you'd need to take a look to decide. You'd be v welcome on the SN boards... many of us are used to being told by unhelpful schools about our need to act on dc terrible behaviour (during school hours when they're in charge)

The DfE has guidance on exclusion from mainstream schools.

Some PRUs are used very effectively to help children reintegrate into mainstream education. They can be very good at this and work closely with the SLT of mainstream schools. Others take only permanently excluded children. This was never the intention.

I think the parents should listen carefully to what the school is proposing. If she is at risk of permanent exclusion, going to a PRU is the best option. Some are very poor though so read the Ofsted inspection for the one proposed. At secondary level, some are very basic because they lack science labs etc. so exam results can be very low. There is also the risk of very meeting difficult children in them. You also need very good staff to ensure the children do well.

I think posters above have talked about primary PRUs which can be quite different from secondary ones. Less drugs and illeagal wayward behaviour for a start. However, the idea is to reintegrate into a mainstream school and I would talk along these lines and not agree to off rolling to a PRU.

8 year old thread bubbles!

Good heavens! So it is. I wish people would start new threads rather than tag onto old ones! Or display the date on my phone!!!