Kent Pupils vanishing from schools before GCSE; including Oasis Academy Isle of Sheppey

This article does not attribute any of the tactics described to any particular school. However, there is evidence that some families remove their children from main-stream schools as an alternative to a threat of permanent exclusion (see below – Oasis Isle of Sheppey Academy).  It is now some years since I highlighted the then high level of permanent exclusions in Kent, and this figure has since fallen sharply with considerable government pressure to see permanent exclusion as a last resort.  

I have followed this data through for all Kent secondary schools, looking at pupils leaving their schools between the 2014 September Year 10 Census and the 2016 January Year 11 Census. Schools adopting an off-rolling tactic need to remove them from the school roll before the January Census in Year 11, otherwise they show up in the school’s examination statistics. 

The table below identifies those schools with the highest figures for off-rolling, by number and percentage.  Two other schools with a higher than average pupil loss are: Meopham School, part of Swale Academies Trust; and The North school, Ashford, also run by Swale Academies.

 One of the tactics to remove students from a school roll is to transfer them wholly to Pupil Referral Units (PRUs) for young people with behavioural difficulties. However, the great majority of pupils placed in PRUs remain on the host schools’ registers, and so are not off-rolled and are not included in the table below. Families in such a situation should ask for their child to remain on the host school roll, but appear not always to be informed at some schools that this is an option. There is just one PRU that stands out by its large proportion of complete transfers. Swale Inclusion Unit (PRU) saw its Year 11 roll swell from six to 38 students between September 2015 and January 2016. 

In total, 293 Kent children disappeared from school rolls between the September 2014 census and the cohort that sat GCSEs in 2016. A net figure of 59 arrived in other schools. Between September 2015 (I don’t have the 2014 data) and January 2016, another 39 children were enrolled at the six PRUs as their main base, more than doubling, up from 31 children, 32 of them at Swale Inclusion Centre. It is reasonable to conclude that most of these children came from the three Swale schools in the table above.

Schools adopting an off-rolling tactic need to see pupils leave the school roll before the January Census in Year 11, otherwise they show up in the school’s examination statistics. A few may have moved home, a few may have transferred to other schools some by encouragement or, all included in the 59), whilst many if not most of the rest will have been allowed or encouraged to take up ‘Home Education’, Kent having by some way the largest cohort of Home Educated children in the country.

High Weald Academy is of special note, with nearly one in five students disappearing before GCSE, by some way the highest percentage in the county. Whilst this is no doubt contributory to the school’s high GCSE performance, it is clear that parents are aware something is wrong at the school which has the highest vacancy rate in the county. 

Government is at present placing pressure on Local Authorities to ensure that all young people aged 14-18 remain in education, training or employment with training, but clearly the practice of off-rolling in its different guises seriously damages young people’s employment and life chances and the Ofsted initiative should at least see schools scaling back this process.

The Academy has now introduced a controversial and simplistic tough new disciplinary code to improve standards of behaviour. Rightly it begins with a Rewards Policy, but then degenerates through a detention system ‘the detention system is non-negotiable’ via a mechanical route to ‘Reflection’ and Exclusion'. Reflection, which will for example be imposed for a pupil arriving at detention five minutes late, requires pupils to sit in a room and ‘Reflect’ on their behaviour for a whole day, an utterly unrealistic expectation that a day of boredom will improve matters. Quote: ‘Reflection is a large room where children sit and do nothing, they are only allowed to go to the toilet’.

Government Advice on Behaviour and Discipline in Schools states with regard to internal exclusion: 'Schools should ensure that pupils are kept in seclusion or isolation no longer than is necessary and that their time spent there is used as constructively as possible'. The school, in a letter to the local Member of Parliament, states that its policy of Reflection is compliant with this advice, although it appears to meet neither of these criteria. For no work is set in Reflection, so the pupil is deprived of any form of education, and there is no constructive action to tackle any problems, underlying or otherwise, leading to the sanction. A process of Internal Exclusion is itself not uncommon, and makes sense where a pupil needs to be removed from what may be a difficult class environment for disciplinary reasons ‘in order that learning and teaching for the majority of pupils can continue uninterrupted’ according to older advice from the Department of Education. However, it is clear that many of those who find themselves in Reflection are not guilty of any such interruption and so it is clearly not an appropriate punishment. Therefore this all surely opens the school to legal challenge.

There is no opportunity built in for challenging any of the automatic penalties which can therefore rapidly escalate out of proportion to the original offence, and examples of ridiculous cases are highlighted in local and social media and in the enclosed thoughtful letter of complaint to the Secretary of State. The letter, whose content shines through with a frustrated belief in the value of a good education, was signed by 24 families who are part of a Parental Group of over 200, indicating the large scale of concern. It also makes allegations about the recent Ofsted Inspection. 

For one parent who complained, the reported view of the Principal is that ‘it’s a bit like going shopping you go to Sainsbury’s and if you don’t like it you go to Asda instead’. A very patronising view, given there is no practical school alternative, with all five Sittingbourne secondary schools, the only ones realistically accessible from Sheppey, full. Another family who took up the MP’s advice to see the headteacher, were reportedly told their child should fulfill a Reflection they considered wholly unfair, face Exclusion, or consider Home Education. They have now acted on the latter advice and like too many other families have withdrawn their children from the school. They have found a local Home Tutor, in what would appear to be a growing business but what a failure of the education system for all the children affected.