No more exclusions and sexual violence in schools

[2fallsagain]

Have you seen the group No More exclusions are recommending that those who commit sexual violence should not be excluded? Rather they think the school should take a "community approach".

Whilst exclusions are not desirable you cannot include one child at the risk of others.

There is a big row going on with the NEU as they state it's not official policy. However many local NEU groups are tweeting in solidarity. It is alarming that so many are overriding safeguarding.

Here is SSA comment

twitter.com/SafeSchools_UK/status/1321193026228752387?s=20

@MillieEpple

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.

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

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

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

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?

@Justajot

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

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

Given that you need to educate this child, that he's a risk to female teachers and to girls wherever you send him, and that exclusion increases his risk of offending, you have to work out a way to keep this child away from a fair few people, but in education. It might work out cheaper in the long run to use a taxi and a 1:1 than a secure institution.

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.

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.

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.

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.

(And you can have specialist teachers in mainstream. If you have pupils at this level of disruption in your mainstream secondary you should have staff with this level of expertise. There's no force field preventing them from working in mainstream schools).

@drspouse

(And you can have specialist teachers in mainstream. If you have pupils at this level of disruption in your mainstream secondary you should have staff with this level of expertise. There's no force field preventing them from working in mainstream schools).

I have two disabled kids. One is in a highly specialist out-of-county indie placement, and the other is in mainstream. I am very, very familiar with what can and cannot be provided, thanks.

And the girls harmed (and some boys, though more rarely) deserve a space free of their attacker. That means exclusion is likely to be necessary where an assault is sufficiently serious to merit such exclusion. That doesn't mean the perpetrator should just be dumped in a different setting - far from it. It means their needs should be met - and so should those of their victim(s).

So move them. Excluding them tells the other boys they just have to behave like this and they get at least a week off school. Yay!

@DorisDaisyMay

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.

There's a wonderful therapeutic setting near us for kids such as those you describe. Very high staff ratios, lots of outdoor learning, a focus on mental health above all else. Very skills based, rather than academic, which is what their intake need. The idea any of them would have been better in a mainstream with a 1:1 is ridiculous.

Mainstream just is not suitable for all children and young people.

What exactly is the difference between excluding with appropriate alternative provision and moving them to that alternative provision? Is it their consent? Is this just semantics?

It's consent, choice and it's actually a plan. The family can choose if an alternative destination is more suitable. They can phase in the right destination and if it doesn't work they can rethink. And it doesn't mean weeks at home with no school and the chance to roam the streets, or the message that you can play up and get sent home.

Are people on this thread using "exclusion" to only mean "permanent exclusion" or to also include "temporary exclusion" (what used to be called "suspension")?

Kinda feels like some posters are talking at cross purposes.

And you can have specialist teachers in mainstream. If you have pupils at this level of disruption in your mainstream secondary you should have staff with this level of expertise.

And the magical funding fairy is right there with the money for this in your fantasy land

Drspouse I'm going to guess you don't currently work in a mainstream secondary school. I work somewhere that PExs approx 3 students per year. By the time students get to this point they have had many school level interventions, then usually a managed move trial to another secondary and a failed trial at AP. Meanwhile for the 2 years this process is taking place, the rest of the class are tolerating abuse, violence, constant disruption and their learning isn't happening. PEx is sometimes the evidence needed to secure a school place in the appropriate school.
I agree we need other schools and more holistic provision for some students. However banning PEx isn't the way round it at the moment. If anything schools need to be able to access alternatives faster, and lower the impact on the other 29 students in the room.

As for NME, clearly they are a bunch of sexual abuse apologists.

I think that there is a level of behaviour that means you lose choice. I'm not sure why the consent to attend alternative provision would trump the consent of a victim to continue to share a school with their attacker.

It isn't going to cost more to educate a child in mainstream with a specialist (or move him to a PRU etc etc) than keep him in prison.

It isn't going to cost more to educate a child in mainstream with a specialist (or move him to a PRU etc etc) than keep him in prison.

Sadly schools don't get prison funding....

there is a level of behaviour that means you lose choice. I'm not sure why the consent to attend alternative provision would trump the consent of a victim to continue to share a school with their attacker.
I'm referring to the parents' choice of school - I don't think there's any right of a child to choose school in any case.
Being Pex as my DS was removes that; and his AP is firm that it is pointless excluding children who have already learned that if they feel like going home/out with their mates they just have to kick off.

What about the other children drspouse? Why should they continue to be victims?

@drspouse

It's consent, choice and it's actually a plan. The family can choose if an alternative destination is more suitable. They can phase in the right destination and if it doesn't work they can rethink. And it doesn't mean weeks at home with no school and the chance to roam the streets, or the message that you can play up and get sent home.

All of that takes time. Why should the victim have to put up with this? That would be very upsetting.

Consent! That is funny given they have sexually assaulted someone and obviously don’t understand consent. What if they say no, they aren’t moving!

If no action is taken you could easily get students thinking they can do what they like. And they would be correct!

I'm not sure you've read what I've written @Hercwasonaroll

There should be a way to educate the child who has offended without forcing the victim to see them and without sending the offender out on the streets.
I've suggested several ways which are all cheaper than prison - managed moves, 1:1 (and the family may prefer a move to effective internal exclusion), in many ways a 1:1 situation may be more suitable if the boy is still a risk, because of the risk to other girls and women.
Exclusions are part of the school culture and NME wants to stop that. I don't think they work and everyone here is suggesting as alternatives all the things that "are done" under the current system. You can't change one part of the system without changing it all. So I can't suggest all the possible alternatives because they aren't all currently used.