Permanent Exclusion, Home Education and Children Missing from Education in Kent 2016-17

Given reports that the number of permanent exclusions is rising around the country, Kent’s remarkable record of the lowest proportion of secondary school permanent exclusions in the South East at 0.05% in 2015-16 ( a third of the national percentage) is likely to see its national position  of 13^th lowest rate in the country with 51 exclusions improve even further when 2016-17 outcomes are published, at 49 secondary permanent exclusions. The proportion from primary schools at 0.01% of the population is negligible, at half the national rate.

There were just three children excluded who had Statements of SEN or Education Health Care Plans (the replacement classification) last year; contrast this with the 25 permanent exclusions of statemented children in 2013-14 out of a total of 87 or the 41 of 2011-12. For many years government policy has been that for statemented children exclusion should be a very last resort, but there remains considerable concern over the large numbers nationally. Kent has seen around one fifth of the national average of statemented/EHCP pupils permanently excluded in 2016-17, although I was still contacted by too many such families where the school was threatening exclusion unless they moved the child elsewhere.   

With numbers this low in Kent, it could be that a single major issue can give rise to a jump in exclusion figures for a school. It is perhaps unfortunate that Knole Academy is the only one of the five secondary schools with more than five permanent exclusions in one of the last three years, to suffer this fate twice. Given comments below, it may be relevant that three of the others are Ebbsfleet Academy, High Weald Academy and New Line Learning Academy.

However, some schools have taken up alternative strategies to exclusion to force 'undesirable' children out, such as encouraging families to change schools, take up Home Education for their children (see below), or transferring children to Pupil Referral Units designed for those at risk of exclusion (see below).

There has been growing concern about schools removing pupils in Years 10 and 11 to improve GCSE performance. 22 of the Kent exclusions were from these Year Groups, which I don’t think is a large enough number or proportion to suggest that exclusion is being used as a tool in this way.

When I investigated and wrote about the illegal exclusion of up to 32 students at the end of Year 12 at Invicta Grammar School in 2016, I did not anticipate it becoming the national scandal into which it developed. The effect of the rules being widely made available by government, so that the illegality became well known, has had a powerful consequence for staying on rates in grammar schools. In 2016, 264 students left or were forced out of Kent grammar schools at the end of Year 12. By 2017, when the rules were well known, this figure fell to 165, most of whom I must assume left for legitimate reasons. It is not possible to quantify the situation regarding non-selective schools, as so many pupils follow one year courses at these schools. 

One complication is the variety of reasons for choosing EHE, a list by the BBC reads: lifestyle choice; dissatisfaction or conflict with the local school; cultural reasons; bullying; special needs; or failure to get into a school of choice, as the main ones in order.

In Kent, the largest numbers are in Swale – 147 new cases; Maidstone – 119 new cases; Thanet – 100; and Dartford – 81.

After Ebbsfleet Academy at 4.1% of the school’s total roll – the equivalent of more than one child in every class leaving for EHE; and Oasis Isle of Sheppey Academy at 3.3%; come Hartsdown Academy 3.1%; Community College Whitstable and New Line Learning Academy 2.8%; and High Weald Academy 2.6%. All six are the schools of last choice in their local areas with few if any alternative schools available, and so inevitably take in numbers of children who have been turned down by all their preferences. This will inevitably have an effect on parental dissatisfaction if children are at schools they did not choose.  

It is no coincidence that the first three of these schools are the Tough Love Academies, accounting for 15% of the total, about which I have written several times before. Certainly, from parents I have talked with who have withdrawn their children from Sheppey and Ebbsfleet, it has not been a matter of choice, rather the final straw with several reporting threats by the school to leave or else face exclusion which, if proven would be unlawful. Sheppey operates what I believe to be an unlawful isolation system often for petty reasons, which could amount to abuse to improve behaviour. This is called 'Reflection' and appears designed to alienate its victims. Interestingly, this week I have had reports surfacing of staff being bullied at Ebbsfleet.

Hartsdown, NLL and High Weald all have sectional communities who may regard schooling as optional, compounding the issue. Hartsdown in Thanet also suffers because with all schools technically full, and a transient population with considerable levels of deprivation, it will tend to fill spaces with children who present a challenge, such as language, culture or Children in Care placed in Thanet by London Boroughs. The school’s headteacher describes Margate as ‘on the margins of English society, both culturally and economically’ and his own intake as having: ‘many who come from extremely challenging backgrounds. 27% of our students are EAL, with 10% Roma. Margate has become a bridge head for eastern European immigration and Hartsdown has specialised in integrating unaccompanied asylum seeking minors. 57% of our students are disadvantaged / pupil premium’. 

For reasons I still completely fail to understand, KCC refused to provide anwers to my FOI request for information on the Year Groups of pupils who left for EHE. See below, although they eventually provided me with everything I wanted and almost everything I had requested in the first place. Given current government concerns over issues around Home Education, most recently the number of children being forced out before GCSE, I find this attitude bewildering.

As it happens, the additional data has not substantiated my theory that Kent schools were forcing children out to improve GCSE results, as is reportedly happening with too many nationally, although some appear to use an alternative tactic in Swale and North West Kent (see PRU below).

The 338 primary leavers for EHE are spread across a wide range of schools, the eleven with five or more withdrawals including Drapers Mill and Dame Janet Primary Academies, in Thanet, and Minster and Richmond Academies, on the Isle of Sheppey, all in areas of considerable deprivation, together with Edenbridge Primary near Sevenoaks, recently placed in Special Measure whose failures including unchecked bullying.

The articulate and vociferous lobby for Elective Home Education and against regulation appears to consider their life-style choice to be the only reason to make it as a choice. They do a massive disservice to the victims of the system as described above, for whom it is no choice. 

Both these two are controversial, the Swale Inclusion Unit (SIU) being effectively managed by the Swale Academies Trust whose two schools use it extensively for both types of placement, and the failed NW Kent Alternative Provision Unit.

The North West Kent Alternative Provision Service (PRU), which had 36 of these pupils on Long Term Placements in October 2017, has failed them badly, as recorded by Ofsted in its Inspection Report when the PRU was found Inadequate, partly because ‘The local authority did not keep a close enough watch on the school between 2013 and 2016’. A new Headteacher is making reported to be making improvements.

For 2015-16, 21 of the 41 pupils taken off roll by their schools and placed in SIU were from the two Swale Academy Schools, Sittingbourne Community College and Westlands School, a further 6 from Oasis Isle of Sheppey. After I drew attention to this practice last year, the figure fell to 10 out of 26 in 2016-17, again with 6 from Sheppey.

The figures for NW Kent were smaller with 9 in 2015-16 rising to 19 in January 2017, but with the recent surge to 36 as reported by Ofsted. Census figures suggest that a considerable part of the increase is from pupils previously on the roll of Ebbsfleet Academy. 

For what is called dual Registration (i.e. pupils remained on their home school roll), there were a total of 561 pupils in 2016-17, including 10 from primary schools. Largest users were: Hartsdown placing 32 pupils, Oasis Isle of Sheppey 27 and Sittingbourne Community College 24. No one else had more than 20. NOTE: These figures are lower than in my previous version as I had included children from the Kent Education Health Needs Service in error. For that reason I have removed Langafel Primary from my list. 

Unsurprisingly, the largest figure for 2016-17 was in Thanet at 333, followed by 287 in Swale, 241 in Gravesham and 231 in Dover, all the way down to 67 in Sevenoaks.

Probably the biggest question remains: is the very low level of permanent exclusions achieved through encouraging the high rates of EHE and transfer to PRUs?

Whilst I can see evidence that a few schools are actively promoting this for difficult or low performing pupils, I am unconvinced the practice is widespread. Many vociferous lobbyists for EHE will argue that choosing to home educate is generally a life style choice, but this is not the case and it is far more complicated, as my article shows.

I have shown that other reasons for EHE in Kent are indeed those in the BBC list: living in an area of deprivation which may also tie in with failure to be awarded any school of one’s choice, itself often associated with dissatisfaction with the school attended. Bullying occurs in several of the examples above; and cultural issues can include an ambivalence about school attendance and membership.

There is also a vociferous lobby arguing that EHE is an easy way out for inadequate or uncaring families. This may be true for some, but in either case, the child will not receive any education, which will present a much bigger problem for society when they grow up. They should not be abandoned, but whose responsibility is it to tackle the issue?

Then there are the children missing from education, in some cases vanished completely. Whilst I feel it is completely out of my self-defined limits to comment on the horrendous issues this may be covering up, surely it needs a much higher priority than it is currently awarded by government.