School exclusion - when can it happen

[deliataughtme]

My daughter goes to a small comprehensive school with a very good reputation. She is in Year 8. Since Year 7 it has been clear that there is a significant minority comprising four to six girls who are very badly behaved, who continually disrupt, who are making it hard to learn and who are generally making the school environment very unpleasant. Some examples of bad behaviour include: theft, assault, intimidation, minor pyromania, foul language directed at teaching staff, disruption and a general aura that they are out of control. The police have been involved on at least two or three occasions due to behaviour being criminal in nature. It is certainly dangerous.

The head has repeatedly denied there is a problem in the year. The problem is concentrated in one class. The behaviour in the year group is poor and it is out of line with the rest of the school which promised very high standards at admissions but has not delivered them.

The situation is now getting worse because there seem to be two sets of rules. The well behaved girls have recently been bawled out for some very trivial things and the school's response has been disproportionate for the level of misdemeanour and the girls are beginning to lose respect for the staff and feel the situation is very unfair. It seems so unfair that the majority are bearing the brunt now of not just really bad behaviour but because sanctions are disproportionate and the well behaved majority have recently received harsh sanctions for very minor infringements.

There have been a few fixed term exclusions but the situation has escalated in the last six months but the school will not admit to a problem or set out what it is doing about it. The school has a waiting list of 00's and it seems ridiculous that the school will not exclude girls who are dangerous and who have behaved criminally.

Can any teachers please explain why a school would do so little to make sure promised high standards or behaviour are delivered, has allowed a differentiated and unfair system of sanctions to develop and most importantly whether anything prevents permanent action being taken.

I hope I receive some answers that are constructive and which can enlighten me.

Not sure this is constructive, but I know someone who taught in a comprehensive which was generally considered to be an average school. The behaviour you describe took place at this school and the main child responsible was not expelled. The problem is where to send expelled children.

To be blunt, it costs us in the region of £6k to permanently exclude a child. So we have to try to keep at all costs - we don't have a waiting list to cushion us. I know we are getting four lads in Y7 and a transfer in to Y9 who will probably end up being permanently excluded next year - which will mean we lose a teacher.

Just a thought that if you ever wanted to speak to the school about situation, you should focus on how this is directly affecting your daughter (they won't be interested in general criticisms about other pupils and possibly tell you their sanctions to individual pupils are 'none of your business' - which is not helpful to you.).

The governors are another route. Hope it works out. Find out what your options are.

OK so a couple of further questions.

Does it still cost £6,000 - £7,000 if there are a lot of children on the waiting list because it is a very popular school?

If a child ends up permanently disfigured because of an attack, won't that cost the school more than the cost of exclusion. For example I have an audit trail setting out concerns, setting out the impact on my daughter and replies telling me there are no problems in the year group.

If a head tells parents at admissions that expectations are exceptionally high and if their daughter's can't meet them it is the wrong school for them, should the head not be making significant attempts to deliver what has been promised. This behaviour is not in line with the norm for this school.

If a school is very well supported, ie, a school where parents raise in excess of £40,000 per year, shouldn't the head be more receptive to the concerns of the parents who support the school in the context of both time and money?

Can someone explain why criminality is glossed over in an excellent school and why the education of the majority should have to suffer.

The responses are helpful to a point, but it isn't right is it?

I am not totally au fait with the financial elements - from what I do understand, there is a fine and some clawback of funding. I just fill in the reams of sodding paperwork.

There may be things happening behind the scenes that parents and children are not aware of. I do not discuss sanctions with parents of other kids, for example. I am in the middle of a managed move process and no- one but my colleagues and the parents of the child involved know about it.

As for the fundraising aspect - well, I know that my previous HT would have said 'so what? I am running the school - if you don't like it, leave.'. Ok, £40k is a lot, but still a small percentage of the budget. Sadly you can't allocate the funds to excluding these kids - although I have promised my school an 'exclusion fund' when I win the lottery....

I wouldn't expect sanctions to be discussed with me but after two years I would have expected a good head to have achieved improvements or to have permanently excluded those who are damaging the education ans enjoyment of others.

In response to your comment about your previous head's response that parents who didn't like it could go elsewhwere, I think that's perfectly valid if the school is delivering the standards promised at admissions. When a school is not doing that and a place at another, very good school was turned down then because of those promises I think the existing school should step up to the mark and deliver what it promised. To do something different does a disservice to the majority of the school communty and that the head and the governors have to accept some responsibility for the situation. Had we been told the school would differentiate the application f the rules and fail to apply the behaviour code to all girls we would not have accepted the plac and we would not have turned down the other place which is no longer available.

Is every secondary school in your LEA oversubscribed, OP?

Is it possible one or more of the disruptive/violent pupils has a SEN requiring them to attend this particular school? Would that be relevant?

I don't think the girls can be excluded on the basis of what you think they might do.

I am under the impression that if the school changed to being an academy they could more easily exclude disruptive pupils.

To answer you questions

I doubt it

It is possible one has an SEN but so do some very nice girls and they are not violent or disruptive.

I wouldn't suggest a girl was excluded because of what I think they might do; I am suggesting as there have already been episodes of theft (serious), assault (serious), intimidation (serious), pyromania (serious), and repeated disruption and that those episodes are escalating in seriousness, that I do not think reasonably the girls should still be at the school. Nothing that has been done has resulted in improvement.

I don't know if the school will become an academy and if it does, am concerned it might give the school more power to sweep serious issues under the carpet.

I am trying to establish if the present situation is usual in secondary schools, even outstanding ones, if there are any reasons for it and to try to understand why the school has done nothing but deny there is a problem and do nothing to deal with it and to make things better for the majority of pupils.

It is very difficult to make an exclusion stick if it is based on a series of events. We tend to do it for a significant incident - assault on member of staff, for example. And even then it can be questioned.

The situation at present is that the rules around exclusions change 1st september. If the school excluded now then they would not face a financial penalty other than the funding for that pupil going with the pupil. If you re sure that the is a large waiting list then the financial impact will be minimal. The issue would then become one of was the exclusion justified. This would potentially go to an independent appeal panel, who if the school don't really have the evidence then they run a risk of the pupil(s) being returned to the school. I say this because the way that you describe it makes me concerned that the school have not been properly recording all the issues and taking appropriate actions.
From September the exclusion situation does not change but the appeal panel does, it becomes a review panel which if it so decides can send the permanent exclusion back to the school governing body if they think there are material failures on the school's case. The impact of this is that the school governing body can decide to still permanently exclude after looking at the situation again but it will cost the school not only the pupil funding but a £4000 fine. Many schools think this is a potential small price to pay for the removal of a very disruptive pupil.
Why is the school not taking action? To be honest only the senior staff will know, but it could be a desire not to have permanent exclusions being recorded against the school. I could speculate that the draconian measures for trivial issues is actually a back lash from the rest of the staff, in the hope that action would then be taken against the real offenders but it does not seem to be working.
What you are saying is probably being repeated by other parents and this is potentially very damaging for the school. Once a school gets a reputation it takes years to get rid of it. Having said that I am not sure what you can do about it, the only way forward is for the head teacher to grow a backbone and deal with the situation swiftly and decisively.

Hmm. There are a few things here:

1. If the school is not used to bad behaviour, they may be being slow at addressing the issues as they may be unsure what to do and just generally handling it badly.
2. You may be unwittingly exaggerating the second-hand perceptions of your child (very common), as children do exaggerate and, particularly girls in Year 8, tend to see things from a very skewed, personal perspective
3. There may well be loads going on behind the scenes which you have no idea about. For example, we are currently trying to permanantly exclude two brothers for what are actually a couple of incidents serious enough to warrant it. However, the child protection issues which go with the case are making this beyond awkward e.g. they literally do not have an address.

It is fairly difficult to permanantly exclude a child. Having said that, I am slightly embarrassed to give our tally for the academic year. Things that have got rid of kids this year: hitting a teacher, setting off the fire alarm (4+ times), being caught with drugs and the intention to supply (at least five children went this way), use of knives during a fight, throwing a chair. Don't think anybody has actually gone for a series of incidents....but several have volunteered to leave before it got to that stage.

I think Tortu's first point is extremely significant. My DCs are at a school with major problems. It goes in and out of special measure like it is caught on the door handle but behaviour problems are dealt with very strictly. Teaching is a problem but behaviour isnt.

Interestingly we were all chatting about a MN thread (the one about prom) and all three of my DCs recited the disciplinary escalations without promps.

Unfortunatelya very small number of students can turn a year for good or ill. DD1's year has been a virtuous circle, generally good behaviour and (significantly) fewer pregnancies than normal.

Admission thank you, that was very helpful and seems to support my suspicions about the ethos of the head and a relatively new chair of governors.

Tortu You may be right in your first point. I am very certain this is not the exaggeration of my own child but cannot go into specific examples of incidents because it my identify the school. If the school is taking appropriate action, then I would expect the head to concur that the situation is unsatisfactory and to do something about it. Instead what parents hear is "there isn't a problem" "the school is inclusive", "every child is entitled to and education". Some of the incidents have parity with what you describe. Personally I think injuring another child due to assault is as serious as hitting a teacher and find it disappointing that a school will exclude for the latter but not the former - especially when heads are concerned.