Exclusion


panels with review panels for exclusions. These panels will not be able to order a school to reinstate a pupil although they can require them to reconsider their decision. How much difference will this legislation make to what goes on


in schools? Pupil behaviour is not all about hoodies with knives and chewing gum hidden on their person. Nor is it about schools making parents’ lives (and their own) more difficult by a same-day detention. In fact, schools may prefer to retain a 24-hour requirement in their policy, particularly if they believe in working in partnership with parents. It is hard to see how emphasising the powers of schools through the


behaviour guidance or extending these powers through law is going to substantially improve behaviour. What it might do, conversely, is create greater conflict or lead to exclusions.


Proposals in the SEN Green Paper There is an indication that the government is a little worried by the prospect of schools exerting their power to exclude in greater numbers. A niggle that is hinted at in The Importance of Teaching White Paper and the SEN Green Paper3


to continue to take responsibility for their pupils after they have excluded them. The government has announced the intention to trial this approach – a change in accountability and funding arrangements that could make a big difference to schools’ readiness to exclude. But could this further restrict movement between schools? There


would need to be some kind of arrangement that safeguarded those schools prepared to give a disruptive pupil a chance. Sometimes a change in environment, a new peer group and a different approach to discipline can work. Schools will not want to offer this additional opportunity if they believe it will tie them to the pupil for the foreseeable future.


Alternative free schools The government is hoping that alternative provision providers will want to establish their own free schools. The feasibility of this will depend upon the financial implications. A large provider linked to a number of academies in an area may be interested in providing alternative provision to service their schools. It is interesting that the CfBT Education Trust has produced its own literature review of alternative provision4


. Perhaps this


is an indication that this organisation at least is considering establishing alternative provision of its own.


The future The release of the government’s behaviour guidance and its approach to handling the riots demonstrates quite clearly a belief in taking a “no-nonsense”, authoritarian approach to behaviour and discipline. The behaviour guidance is all about summarising the powers that


12


1: Permanent and Fixed Period Exclusions from Schools and Exclusion Appeals in England, 2009/10 (July 2011) http://bit.ly/qIZnEz 2: Appendix A: Sir Alan Steer’s Final Recommendations on Pupil Behaviour: Implementation Plan, DCSF (2009) 3: SEN Green Paper, Support and Aspiration: A New Approach to Special Educational Needs and Disability (2011) 4: Achieving Successful Outcomes Through Alternative Education Provision: An International Literature Review, Gutherson et al. (2011)


teachers and their schools have and encouraging their use. The assumption is that pupils can be made to behave and the libertarian approaches to pupil discipline of the past have created escalating behaviour problems. Ironically, the data referred to above seems to tell a different story.


Whatever schools have been doing, albeit through backdoor exclusions or moving “naughty” children around through managed moves, the statistics suggest it has been working. What now if the main strategy for addressing the needs of challenging children is using your power and authority rather than partnership


“Sometimes a change in environment, a


new peer group and a different approach to discipline can work.”


. The suggestion is that schools might be required


and persuasion? Will that do the trick? It depends upon which school of thought you come from. For some people the issue is a clear one of understanding the difference between right and wrong and bad behaviour not being tolerated. For others, the problems are much more complex than that. The


causes of the behaviour of our challenging children are such a mixture of elements, from medical difficulties to social and housing deficiencies, from omissions in early childhood to abuse in later life, that three strokes of the cane simply will not work. When it does not, is it just a case of fast- track to prison? We might accept prison as a temporary solution and a short, sharp shock.


But what strategies do we wish to use with these young people in the long term? There are few who would cite prison as a therapeutic opportunity to correct anti-social behaviour. In fact, their time in prison is likely to create even more behavioural and emotional difficulties. A prognosis that could make the “big society” a very dangerous place to be.


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