Summary
In this episode of School Behaviour Secrets, we explore the rise in suspensions and permanent exclusions, revealing the most common causes.
Learn proactive strategies to reduce exclusions and download our free Exclusions Checklist for practical, needs-led behaviour support. Let†s create more inclusive schools!
Important links:
To download our FREE Reducing Exclusion Checklist.
Get our FREE SEND Behaviour Handbook: https://beaconschoolsupport.co.uk/send-handbook
Download other FREE behaviour resources for use in school: https://beaconschoolsupport.co.uk/resources.php
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Show notes / transcription
[00:00:00 - 00:00:21] Emma Shackleton
As we see school exclusion on the increase, it's more important than ever that we as school leaders and teachers understand the real reasons why kids are being excluded from school and know what we can do about it. I'll share all of that with you, plus some surprising facts and statistics in this week's episode of School Behaviour Secrets.
[00:00:22 - 00:01:01] Simon Currigan
Welcome to the School Behaviour Secrets podcast. I'm your host, Simon Currigan. My co host is Emma Shackleton, and we're obsessed with helping teachers, school leaders, parents, and of course, students when classroom behaviour gets in the way of success. We're gonna share the tried and tested secrets to classroom management, behavioural special needs, whole school strategy, and more, all with the aim of helping your students reach their true potential. Plus, we'll be letting you eavesdrop on our conversations with thought leaders from around the world. So you'll get to hear the latest evidence based strategies before anyone else. This is the School Behaviour Secrets podcast.
[00:01:02 - 00:01:40] Emma Shackleton
Hi there. My name's Emma Shackleton, and welcome to this week's episode of School Behaviour Secrets. In this episode, we're going to look at the issue of exclusion because across the country, we're seeing more and more permanent exclusions and suspensions being used by schools. So we're going to unpick how serious the issue is, the most common reasons why kids get excluded, and what we can do as teachers and school leaders to tackle this problem in a positive and proactive way. We do have a free download that supports this episode really well. It's called the exclusions checklist, and it gives you a set
[00:01:42 - 00:14:53] Emma Shackleton
of ideas and strategies to refer to if you find yourself in the difficult position of having to make an exclusion in school. It's a position that no senior leader wants to find themselves in, and this is a way of making sure that you've explored every avenue before moving forward with a potentially life changing decision for your pupil. You can get a copy for free from our website. We'll put a direct link in the episode description or the comments if you're watching on YouTube. All you've got to do is open them up and tap or click directly through. And don't forget, if you find this free podcast useful, make sure you like and subscribe. That helps to share this content with other teachers and school leaders so that the information can reach more people.
It's the quickest and cheapest way of supporting the show. It'll cost you 30 seconds. Okay. Let's look at how exclusions are changing in school and what this means for us as teachers and school leaders. So here are the 2 key forms of exclusion, what they mean and how common they are. And the facts I'm going to share with you are, well, shocking, really. Let's start with the most common form of exclusion, which is a suspension.
Until a couple of years ago in England and Wales, the Department For Education referred to this as a fixed term exclusion. Then about 15 years before that, they were called suspensions.
So well done, DFE. Bravo for keeping things simple. Not changing the names of things for the sake of it. Suspension is where a pupil is excluded from school for a limited period. In England, And that number was up from the previous term too. And that number was up from the previous term too. And the most common trigger for a suspension, persistent disruptive behaviour, followed by verbal aggression, followed by physical assault of a pupil.
Another key thing to know about suspensions in England is this, they tend not to go beyond 5 consecutive days because at day 6, your school becomes responsible for the pupil's education again. So if they're banned from your school site, you now have to find another school willing to educate them on day 6, which isn't easy. Here's the facts and figures on permanent exclusion in our schools. First off, permanent exclusion is exactly what it says it is. A pupil has been, because of their behaviour, permanently excluded by the school and can never come back to this school. In the past, this used to be called an expulsion, which is what it's called everywhere else in the world. Again, big shout out to the DFE for keeping on changing the names of things, proving that if you rebrand a problem, you simultaneously show that you're taking it seriously and you've tackled the difficult underlying causes driving the problem? Not. Permanent exclusions in the spring term of 2023 were at 3,039 children, which is up by a 3rd on the previous year.
In spring last year, there were only 2,200 permanent exclusions. I say only, that's still 2,200 kids without a place in school. And the most common cause of permanent exclusion, our survey says, same as suspensions. It was persistently disruptive behaviour. That was followed by physical assault on a pupil, followed by verbal aggression. Interesting side note, 85% of permanent exclusions recorded were in secondary school. The implication for us, the adults, we need to think about what it is about the way that we are teaching today post 11 that accounts for that massive difference.
So why do we see so many more excluded children in secondary school than primary school? In terms of the things that are within our control, well, here's one possible reason. In secondary schools, you tend to have separate SEND teams and pastoral teams. If you're listening abroad, when I use the word pastoral here, it has no kind of religious association at all. A pastoral team is a group of adults who work with students on their behaviour. Now that could be when a teacher needs support in the heat of the moment, say when a pupil becomes frustrated in the classroom and loses control of their emotions and explodes or shouts at the teacher or walks out of class. Lots of the pastoral staff I've met are naturally empathetic and caring and deescalate the situation brilliantly.
But one danger is some classroom teachers can, and I'm emphasizing some here, start to over rely on pastoral staff or over time the teachers start to say, the pastoral team's job is to do behaviour and I'm here to teach, which means that you don't see proactive strategies in place, so you see more and more avoidable behaviour issues. Splitting student support in secondary schools into pastoral and SEND teams gives you another key problem. Pastoral teams often provide proactive support to pupils, providing interventions to support pupils understand their emotions and feelings, get on socially, perhaps some mentoring, check ins, and so on. But often, that work is disconnected by the work of the special needs department, which is problematic. Because the kinds of pupils who get excluded from school, they often have complex underlying needs. That could be a condition like autism or ADHD or developmental language disorders and so on. Or those pupils might have a history of trauma in their families where there's domestic violence or criminality or drug or alcohol abuse, or they could have both.
And complex needs like this needs a holistic approach. It's hard to get that big picture thinking. So in secondary, we need to move away from pastoral and SEN teams. They are the same teams supporting the same pupils in a needs led approach, more like SEMH tends to be tackled in primary schools. Those high exclusion rates we're seeing right now, over 3,000 kids permanently excluded in the spring term alone, over a quarter 1000000 suspensions in the spring term. Now there are two ways of looking at these numbers. The first is to say behaviour in our schools is getting worse and it's out of control.
And what we need to tackle that is zero tolerance. And the thing about zero tolerance is that it's a super seductive idea because it's so simple. It takes a complicated problem and reduces it down to the solution. Well, we just won't take these behaviours anymore and we'll drive up standards. Easy. But here's the thing, if it were as easy as 0 tolerance, we'd already have solved this problem. I'm all for high standards and I've seen with my own eyes the difference high standards can make in a classroom. It's true.
Most kids will either raise their behaviour to meet your standards or lower their behaviour to meet your standards. So the rule there is with a new class, make your standards for behaviour clear from day 1 and stick to them. But the kids who get excluded, they're not most kids. There's more going on with their behaviour that we have to dig into. Because here's another way of looking at the incredibly high exclusion rates we see in our schools and it's this. There's an awful lot of kids out there struggling with unmet social, emotional, and mental health needs who are getting kicked out of school often avoidably if those needs were identified and met more quickly because then you would get far less of the persistent disruptive behaviour and verbal and physical aggression. Those pupils would be far more regulated and supported and able to cope in class and the busy social and sensory environment of school.
Am I saying that no pupil would ever be permanently excluded or suspended or we don't need sanctions? Absolutely not. Because everyone, adults and children, deserves to work in an environment where they feel safe and can focus. But if we want to reduce exclusions, we have to get better at quickly identifying pupils' underlying needs and then taking a needs led approach to supporting them. And then we'll see exclusion rates reduce without resorting to cheap sound bites like 0 tolerance. So what strategies can we use in school that will effectively reduce exclusion, that do address underlying needs so that we tackle the causes of challenging behaviour rather than its symptom? Here are some classroom focused strategies to use if you're a school leader when a pupil starts to hit any form of exclusion.
Number 1, double check that you haven't missed whether they have an underlying need. 2, if the child has an IEP or behavior plan and they're supposed to receive some support in the classroom, whether that's recovery breaks or a visual timetable or sensory support or text adaptations, make sure that that is actually being done in the classroom. Go in and do some random spot checks and see it with your own eyes. Make sure you're holding the adults to account. 3, if you discover that the strategies aren't being used, ask the question, is it because this person doesn't know how to do this well? Have they had the training and support that they need to deliver the strategies well? Because it's all well and good suggesting something like emotional coaching or reframing or restorative practice and that being written on a pupil's plan, but if the adult doesn't know what they need to do or they're not confident with it, how can they deliver that effectively?
Now here are 3 strategies for school leaders to use to tackle exclusion that are focused on systems and whole school practice. When a child gets suspended, always check parents have been invited into school for a friendly, professional, problem solving discussion about supporting their child with their behaviour. If the family have issues at home or are struggling to cope with their child's needs, have all the supporting agencies been involved? Don't just think about learning, think about social care, medical needs, housing, anything else that can impact on the child's behavior. And if the suspension is the result of a pattern of behaviour and the child appears to be going down the exclusion route, then, and we should do this systematically, ask if you should be thinking about supporting the child with an EHCP. An education, health, and care plan won't be appropriate for every child, but by asking the question, we make sure that no pupil gets missed out. And thirdly, if the child is approaching permanent exclusion, have you considered a reduced timetable?
The regulations on this will vary depending on where you live, but is not to act as a consequence. It's to be positive to get a support package in place and allow time for it to have an impact. Reducing a child's time in school by itself shouldn't be used as a consequence and does nothing to address their needs or improve their behaviour. And that's everything we've got for you today. The key ideas were exclusion is most often, not always, but most often linked to pupils having unmet additional needs. Pupils are supported best in schools where we work together as a holistic team looking at the pupils' needs in the round rather than dividing ourselves into SEND and behaviour or pastoral teams. And I gave you a set of 6 strategies to focus on that can support your pupils in school.
3 at the class based level and 3 at the bigger picture level. If you found this episode useful, don't forget to like and subscribe or leave a review if you're listening to the podcast. And remember to grab your free copy of our exclusions checklist, look in the comments or episode description for a direct link. Thanks for joining me today and I look forward to seeing you on the next episode of School Behaviour Secrets.
(This automated transcript may not be 100% accurate.)
