Playing a dangerous game: excluding children to improve school league tables

In April 2017 I wrote What contribution does education history make to initial teacher training? I argued that the history of education and the three ‘ologies’ of philosophy, psychology and sociology were no longer core elements of the PGCE qualification for school teachers, with almost all the programme being related to teaching and learning and classroom management. Although my main argument then was the importance of studying education history, in fact the three ‘ologies’ are just as important:

Education history identifies, argues and analyses the contribution made by individuals, policy makers and society with regard to education development and achievements. Philosophy, psychology and sociology are important disciplines within education studies in understanding society, values and the psychological and sociological development of children and young people.

The exclusion explosion

In July 2018 I wrote a post for the 'View from the North' blog following the publication of the House of Commons Education Committee Report Forgotten children: alternative provision and the scandal of ever increasing exclusions. Subsequently, there has been substantial media coverage into these ‘forgotten children’. 

An investigation by The Times (Weak pupils expelled as heads ‘game’ exam tables) reported that schools have excluded "thousands of badly performing students in the months before their GSCE examinations". In 2017, 13,000 teenagers were not entered for their examinations, up from 9,000 in both 2016 and 2015. Some 7,000 students did sit some GCSE examinations but in pupil referral units (PRUs). It is also common for some head teachers to exclude pupils for minor infringements such as breaches of uniform policy and disruption in the classroom. Others, such as victims of bullying, are excluded as it is often easier to ‘brush under the carpet’ issues than investigate and deal professionally with a bullying culture in the school.

The law states that children should only be expelled (excluded) as a last resort, where education and harm to others is common. Removing students to boost results - known as off-rolling - is illegal. 

Department for Education statistics on exclusions speak for themselves ...

Year	Fixed Term Exclusions (up to five days)	Permanent Exclusions
2015-16	339,360	6,685
2016-17	381,865 (41 per day)	7,720

Children diagnosed with SEN experiencing fixed-term exclusion was 60 per 1,000 compared with 21 per 1,000 among those without. Those with SEN are seven times more likely to be permanently excluded than those without (House of Commons Education Committee July 2018). It may also be that the figures are much higher as one primary school head in Lancashire, when asked by the LA, was unable to say how many he had excluded, permanent and fixed-term. 

The charity Ambitious about Autism has identified that 4,500 students with autism were excluded from mainstream education during the academic year 2015 – 2016. Others will have been excluded, some as young as five, who were not diagnosed with autism. Author Jessie Hewitson, who has written about autism, says that signs of anxiety are misinterpreted as bad behaviour.

Some heads have been known to remove pupils during ofsted inspections so their behaviour is not a concern for schools being ‘marked down’ as having poor behavioural policies in place. 

In August of this year, Judge Alison Rowley said that aggressive behaviour caused by a child’s condition should not be treated as criminal or antisocial. She described the present policy of excluding children with behavioural difficulties but identified as having autism or similar as ‘repugnant’. Judge Rowley ruled in favour of the family. It seems Britain is breaching the UN human rights convention with the high rate of school exclusions among children with autism. The government is reviewing and the Secretary of State for Education has made it clear ‘action will be taken’… whatever that is!  

Only last week, the press picked up that there were 2,060 children in 2018 who had education, health and care plans (EHCs) setting out their needs but who did not receive any support. Parents have commented that their child was only assessed when they had been excluded. The Chief Inspector of Ofsted, Amanda Spielman, referred to the number of children disappearing from mainstream education as ‘alarming’. But while government, and indeed Parliament, are paralysed over Brexit, the future continues to look bleak as such issues are likely to be on the ‘backburner’ for some time. 

So to come back to my original point. During the 1970s, the Thatcher government insisted that there should be less theoretical underpinning in teacher education. As a result, what I refer to as the ‘olgies’, were removed from the curriculum – psychology and sociology (as well as philosophy and the history of education). On reflection, this was a great loss to initial teacher education programmes in supporting newly trained teachers with a better understanding of sociological and psychological influences that have such an impact on children, families, mental health and society.