For over two months I have been trying to obtain an update on the appalling 2014-15 figures for Medway school permanent exclusions, together with numbers of children on Elective Home Education. According to government figures there were 55 secondary exclusions that year, the highest rate in the South East of England, and the 14th worst in the country. Compare this with the 57 in Kent, a county six times as large.
Ten days ago I wrote an article about Medway Council’s decision to ignore my two Freedom of Information (FOI) requests for up to date figures, causing me to request an Internal Review of the situation. I have now received a superficial and implausible explanation of events from Gayle Jones, Information Governance Manager for Medway Council reporting on the ‘Internal Review’, which only manages to compound the Authority failures. This was accompanied by ‘Final’ replies to my FOIs which seek to hide the information through vague references to ‘data protection’, even when there could be no valid justification. Not one of the six questions I put is properly answered.
The stupidest response is to deny me information on the grounds that it has been sent to Government who now own it, and it is to government I must go to find a response! If this decision were to be upheld by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), to whom I have now complained, then Councils up and down the land could apply this exemption widely and conveniently to hide information. Presumably if the data is no longer Council property, it cannot be reported to Medway Councillors as such! However, you will find the silliest response below.
The whole looks as if it was dashed off to provide a trite and contemptuous dismissal of my concerns and enquiries without any attempt to review or check the facts, by someone who simply did not care, except to hide embarrassing figures. Surely not the role of an Internal Reviewer.
It is my intention to look more closely at Medway’s Permanent Exclusion and Elective Home Education data, when I receive it as a result of my Complaint to the ICO.
When I submitted my request for an Internal Review, I put in a third request for the information which was again ignored until I was sent the outcomes of the Review, including the two FOIs below.
Freedom of Information Request MFOI001173 The Request, and Council Responses (in red) are as follows: I am requesting the following information under FOI for the academic year 2015-16. For each primary, secondary and special school and academy separately. Please break numbers down further by Year Groups. The request is for: 1) the number of permanent exclusions for each school Exclusion data is reported to the Department of Education via the School Census and is then published annually in arears, at Local Authority level. As the Department of Education is the proper owner of this information requests for school level data should be made to them. This information is also published in the underlying data table of the Exclusion Statistical First Releases 2) & 3) The number of managed moves out; The number of managed moves in There were 45 Managed Transfer Requests – I am unable to break it down further due to data protection. 4)The number of children leaving to become home educated = 377 - I am unable to break it down further as requested due to data protection |
4) This is the silliest answer of all, as the data is provided in full on a school by school basis in response to my second FOI (below), supplied by Medway Council in the same email reporting back on the Internal Review. It therefore demonstrates conclusively that the vague term ‘data protection’ should not ever be used without justification of the reasons. The consistent practice with those FOI requests turned down by KCC or Government is rightly to provide such justification.
However, the total figure is certainly alarming, at 377, up from 95 four years ago, the latest figures I have. This is nearly half Kent’s total of 770, a county six times as large.
Freedom of Information Request MFOI001174 The Request and Council Response are as follows: For each Medway school separately with 4 or more pupils leaving to become Educated at Home, I request the number of pupils leaving in the period, and the school Year Group from which they left. I am requesting the following data for the academic year 2015-16, There were 199 children withdrawn from the Primary Sector during the academic year 2015-2016. I am unable to do a complete breakdown as requested due to data protection. Numbers less than 4 have been omitted
Note *The Cedars was a small private Christian evangelical school age range 4-16 with 15 pupils that closed in November 2015. I assume that Medway Council was given responsibility to place pupils, with 10 children taking up ‘Home Education’. There were 178 children withdrawn from the Secondary Sector During the academic Year 2015-2016. I am unable to do a complete breakdown as requested due to data protection. Numbers less than 4 have been omitted
and for 2016-2017 to date. There have been 68 children withdrawn from the Primary Sector so far this academic year 2016-2017. I am unable to do a complete breakdown as requested due to data protection. Numbers less than 4 have been omitted - therefore there is no table to view There have been 112 children withdrawn from the Secondary Sector so far this academic year 2016-2017. I am unable to do a complete breakdown as requested due to data protection. Numbers less than 4 have been omitted.
|
The serious situation in Medway is illustrated by the comparisons below. There is growing evidence that in some schools, families are encouraged by the school to opt for EHE for their children, which would be unlawful. As a result, questions should be asked by Medway Council about those schools with the highest numbers of EHEs, as is starting to happen in Kent.
The comparison is: whereas Medway has 10 Primary schools with five or more children leaving for EHE in 2015-16, headed by Napier Community Primary with 15 children being opted out to EHE, Kent (with six times as many schools) has just three, with none losing more than seven children.
At secondary level Medway has 10 out of its 11 non-selective schools with five or more children leaving for EHE in 2015-16, headed by Hundred of Hoo with 31 children not being schooled, compared with Kent, 41 out of the 69 non-selective schools, headed by Homewood School with 22 pupils.
Hundred of Hoo Academy has also seen 23 children depart for 2016-17 up to Easter, and so is likely to rise significantly higher. It is run by the Williamson Trust, sponsored by Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School, the only grammar school in Kent or Medway to make the lists, with the families of four children choosing EHE.