Contact: John Clarke, Deputy County Education Officer, Tel: 01962 846459 Email: [email protected]
Robin Thomas, Acting Assistant County Education Officer, Tel: 01962 846426 email: [email protected]

1 Summary

1.1 Permanent exclusions in Hampshire have risen. The percentage is now slightly above the national average. It is difficult to make full-time provision for all the pupils who are excluded, within existing resources, and the service is so stretched overall that preventative work is becoming difficult to sustain.

1.2 Experience and research suggest that if the County Council were simply to increase the resource, the likelihood is that the number of permanent exclusions would rise to consume it.

1.3 More radical solutions are needed. These involve the wide acceptance of new principles, across the education community in Hampshire, but especially in secondary schools and the services that support them in this area. Among these are:

· Pupils in danger of exclusion from school are a shared responsibility of schools and the Education Department.

· Except in Key Stage 4, where alternative programmes have to be pursued more rigorously, the services that work with these pupils, including schools, need to be focused more tightly on preventing permanent exclusion and re-integration where prevention has failed. The Education Department's support here needs to be seen as a service not a destination.

· The Education Department's services in this area - EOTAS, Education Centres, Behaviour Support, time from the Education Welfare Service, the Youth Service and from the Education Psychology Service - and those outside the Education Department such as Connexions and eventually Social Services and Health - need to be better aligned and integrated.

1.4 These principles are consistent with the Green Paper "Every Child Matters", the provisions of the Children Bill and with the outcomes of the Best Value Review of EOTAS. The work planned is entirely consistent with the County Council's aims in terms of maximising life opportunities, building strong and safe communities and improving services.

1.5 The support of the EPRC is sought for the principles and for the detailed work that is needed to apply these principles in practice. A further report will be brought in July, setting out that work.

2 Commentary

2.1 For a variety of reasons, including a number of recent changes to central government regulations, the exclusion rate in Hampshire has increased and the number of permanent exclusions, particularly from secondary schools, is now at an unacceptably high level. The seven Education Centres in Hampshire were initially established to meet the needs of 152 excluded pupils. This number was increased to 192 in April 2002, when the County Council decided to make up the financial shortfall when the previously established Pupil Retention Grant was ceased by central government.

2.2 By July 2003, there were 287 excluded pupils on the roll of Hampshire's seven Education Centres, almost exactly 50% over capacity. This intensifies the pressure on the Education Centre Managers and their staff and they are less able to provide the full time provision for excluded pupils, required since September 2002, or the pro-active, early intervention support to schools that might prevent exclusions; so the cycle continues.

2.3 Despite the best efforts of staff in Education Centres, permanent exclusion represents educational failure - for the individual student and for the community as a whole. The social cost is considerable and the financial cost, in the most recent research, suggests that each excluded pupil over their lifetime costs the public purse in the region of £1m.

2.4 Head teachers and governing bodies do not set out to exclude pupils. On the contrary, a sense of failure and desperation is often reported when they are forced to do so but schools consider that, in the light of staff and parental pressure, and in the best interests of the majority of pupils, there is no alternative.

2.5 To create an alternative involves cultural shift and better alignment of support. It is about breaking the current cycle and providing a viable option for schools that allows them to stop short of permanent exclusion.

2.6 The Behaviour Support Teams, now established across Hampshire, are starting to have a very positive impact on behaviour in primary schools. For a number of months now, LEA officers and secondary head teachers have been discussing how a similar impact can be achieved in secondary schools.

2.7 A paper, set out in Appendix 1, has been discussed by secondary headteachers' conference and has received broad support. More detailed work now needs to be done on the construction of integrated teams and on the articulation of what early intervention and the prevention of permanent exclusion will look like in practice. The intention is to plan for structural change in January 2005, but to look for some help from schools between now and the end of the year in order to create capacity to enable the new arrangements to get off the ground in the new year.

2.8 Appendix 2 which has been sent to all Education Centre Managers and Behaviour Support Team Leaders sets out the principles of the new philosophy in more detail.

Recommendations

1 That the principles set out in this report and in the appendices are endorsed and supported.

2 That further work is carried out by officers in the light of the implementation of the Green Paper, the Children Bill, the Best Value Review of EOTAS and the principles set out here, leading to earlier intervention, integrated support teams and the reduction in permanent exclusions.

3 That officers explore how EBD schools might fit into this overall picture.

4 That officers report back to the Education Policy Review Committee in July 2004 with more detailed proposals for the future, including any resource implications.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - Background Documents

The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB The list excludes:

1. Published works

2. Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.

TITLE FILE