It has been discovered that under a Labour administration, students will no longer be expelled from school for misbehavior.
Secondary schools in Southwark, south London, will permit disobedient students to stay as long as they do not endanger the safety of another child, in what is said to be a first for the UK.
Instead, of taking the bad behavior at face value, teachers will be urged to explore the causes behind it by utilizing a “trauma-informed response.”
Following a 2020 assessment that revealed the council had a higher-than-average exclusion rate, all of the schools have ratified the pact.
The same council report also revealed that academies excluded more students than other schools.
Black children in the borough were 1.5 times more likely to be excluded than their white counterparts, according to a separate council investigation.
Council members want the borough to become the first in England to exclude no students in the upcoming school year, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS).
Schools in Southwark reported zero exclusions in the 2021 autumn term.
Southwark police will also be asked to sign up to the agreement, which reads: ‘Our aspiration is for 100 per cent inclusion of children in education that keeps them safe and enables them to flourish.
‘Where appropriate, we will implement a trauma-informed response to behaviour of concern in children.
‘By this, we mean not taking concerning behaviour at face value, but striving to understand what is driving that behaviour. […]
‘We will strive for best practice across our policies and processes and towards 100 per cent inclusion approaches to behaviour in education settings.’
Councillor Jasmine Ali, cabinet member for children, young people and education, told a meeting on July 18 that ‘even one child excluded’ was too much.
She added: ‘We’re absolutely delighted to bring this charter.
‘In 2018 we were rightly concerned that 49 pupils were excluded from education in this borough and they were disproportionately represented by children and young people of black and minority ethnic backgrounds, special education need or disability and many of them had care experience.’
It comes after a report in April suggested there be no exclusions in primary schools from 2026 onwards.
The paper from former Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield also highlighted the ‘adultification’ of black students who are treated with less care and protection because of perceived maturity.
Those children seen as older are more likely to be punished or excluded, the report claimed.
Longfield’s report came a month after the Metropolitan Police was heavily criticised for strip-searching ‘Child Q’ – a black 15-year-old girl – without an appropriate adult present on suspicion of possessing cannabis.
Ms Longfield said: ‘[Adultification is] very real and it has a huge impact on children’s lives,’ she said.
‘Essentially, it’s young people being viewed as older.
‘That means that we look after them slightly less and they don’t get the protections and safeguarding they should.’
Exclusions from primary schools should be prohibited starting in 2026, according to the Commission for Young Lives’ report.
According to Ms. Longfield, the report aims to usher in “a new era of inclusivity” rather than ignore behavioral issues in schools.
According to her comments on the Today program on BBC Radio 4, “This is not trying to ignore the problems that are clearly being displayed with the child, nor is it about lowering expectations around academic achievement, but it is about taking that responsibility for all children within the classroom.”
‘And what we know is if we intervene early and offer that support to those children, often who will have special educational needs, they will be able to thrive in school.
‘But schools really often find themselves wanting to do that, but between a rock and a hard place.
‘They don’t often have specialist support on hand, and to some, sadly, they say exclusion is the only option for them.
‘That’s why we want to see a new era of inclusivity that can support those children to thrive.’
The report said the kind of treatment Child Q and other black children have been subjected to is damaging to their confidence in schools and the police.
It also said that race-equality training should be a core part of teacher training while the school curriculum should be reformed to make it more inclusive.
Jahnine Davis, director of child-protection company Listen Up, told BBC News: ‘Black children are at a greater risk of experiencing this form of bias, due to preconceived ideas about black children being aggressive, deviant, and almost needing to be safeguarded from rather then safeguarded.
‘Black girls tend to be met with suspicion. They tend to be perceived as being loud, as being aggressive and being hyper-resilient.
‘If you want to explore the adultification of black girls, we have to look at the history, which is rooted in slavery and colonialism.’
In the past three years, 5,279 children were searched in London, with 3,939 (75 per cent) from ethnically-diverse backgrounds according to disclosures made under Freedom of Information laws.
Some 16 of those searched were aged between 10 and 12.
The Met has launched a review of its strip-search policy after the widespread backlash at the revelations about Child Q.
According to the Commission on Young Lives study, Ofsted should implement a new inclusion measure that would prevent schools from receiving a “good” or “outstanding” rating unless they are inclusive.
It demanded that schools be “provided with the necessary resources to do this” and that expulsions of students in elementary school be stopped within the following four years.
It was further stated that every school should disclose annually how many students were expelled or transferred from their rolls.
The report noted that vulnerable pupils are sometimes ‘viewed as a problem that can be pushed onto someone else to deal with’ and that some schools have used tactics such as managed moves, off-rolling, exclusions or encouraging families to pursue ‘home education’.
One parent who spoke to the commission, whose child later received an autism diagnosis, said her son was excluded 17 times from school at the age of five.
‘The school said there was defiance and violence, but he was literally tiny,’ she said.
The report said there is a ‘prominent strand of opinion’ that does not accept there is any link between being excluded and becoming involved in crime, but that youth workers, parents and children had told how exclusion from school was a ‘trigger point’ where pupils became more vulnerable to criminal or sexual exploitation or involvement in county lines drug operations.
‘There should never have to be a trade-off between a school achieving good scores and providing an inclusive, nurturing environment that takes responsibility for every child. But so often it seems there is,’ the report said.
It continued, “Or worse, in a minority of schools, they do not feel it is in their interests to even have vulnerable children in their school at all, and they game the system to keep them off their roll.” Some schools “don’t focus on vulnerable children because they do not feel they have an obligation or responsibility to do so.”
According to the report, the majority of expulsions occur in years 10 and 11, when students take GCSE exams that would affect the school’s standing in league tables.
While the ability to expel was a “essential last resort,” according to Julie McCulloch, policy director of the Association of School and College Leaders, “it is very obvious that we must do everything possible to defuse problems that lead to disruptive behavior and keep young people in school.”
The “great majority” of schools, she continued, gave this a high priority, but they had to work within “very restricted finances,” which made it difficult for them to serve vulnerable students more fully.
‘It is also the case that school performance tables prioritise academic attainment rather than how well a school provides an inclusive environment,’ she added.
A Department for Education spokesperson previously said: ‘While permanent exclusion for young children is rare, suspension and exclusion are necessary and essential behaviour management tools.
‘We are working to understand and tackle avoidable absence through the attendance alliance, and the Alternative Provision and SAFE taskforces are providing direct, targeted support to vulnerable pupils at risk of crime or exploitation, to keep them engaged in education.
‘Longer term, our recently published SEND and Alternative Provision Green Paper set out our plans to reform alternative provision, changing the culture and practice of how settings run and best-support their pupils.’