Why Are We Excluding So Many children With SEND?
I take great interest in the annual release of statistics from the Department for Education on the exclusion of children from school. In the last couple of years this has become something of a depressing exercise, with both fixed-term and permanent exclusions on the rise. In addition, I’ve had more conversations with LAs about exclusions […]
I take great interest in the annual release of statistics from the Department for Education on the exclusion of children from school. In the last couple of years this has become something of a depressing exercise, with both fixed-term and permanent exclusions on the rise.
In addition, I’ve had more conversations with LAs about exclusions recently than I’m happy with; they’ve been asking me to work with their schools because exclusions in their areas are skyrocketing.
The statistics provide fascinating detail, since they show significant regional variations in the levels of exclusion (though they may mask illegal exclusion, which isn’t counted)
I recommend taking a look to see how your area compares with your neighbours – they even provide maps, which you can find here.
This is backed up by the recent publication of ‘Local area SEND inspections: one year on’ by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission. Unsurprisingly, we read that “Children and young people who have SEND were found to be excluded, absent or missing from school much more frequently than other pupils nationally…
“School leaders had used unofficial exclusions too readily to cope with children and young people who have SEND. Across nearly all local areas inspected, an alarming number of parents said that some school leaders asked them to take their children home. This was in addition, or as an alternative, to fixed-term exclusions. It is illegal.”
My biggest concern remains the fact that children with SEND are grossly over-represented in both fixed-term and permanent exclusions.
The DfE note that: “Pupils with identified special educational needs (SEN) accounted for almost half of all permanent exclusions and fixed period exclusions,” and that pupils with SEN support furthermore, “had the highest permanent exclusion rate and were almost 7 times more likely to receive a permanent exclusion than pupils with no SEN.” (Emphases mine).
You could be forgiven for jumping to the conclusion that children with SEND are simply predisposed to behaving badly when compared with their peers without SEND.
This cannot be right (I’ve worked in comprehensive, selective and special schools, and visited many more), so it’s interesting to consider why these children feature heavily in exclusion statistics, and to think about what we can do to reduce this inequality.
Negative behaviour and unmet needs
This is fundamental to improving the behaviour of children with SEND in schools. It’s enabled me personally to grow from the nervous NQT who once struggled with behaviour, to someone who has now developed a depth of confidence that this approach works.
Consider the research by Geoff Lindsay and Julie Dockrell, for example, on the relationship between speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) and behavioural, emotional and social difficulties.
They found that children with SLCN are 35 to 50% more likely to have behavioural, emotional and social difficulties. That may well shock you or your colleagues – it shocked me when I first learned of it – but it will be blindingly obvious to anyone who has worked in Early Years.
Often, it’s to do with the large amounts of verbal information they’re having to process – think how much of our lessons are dominated by this – and/or frustrations they may have with communicating, such as the technical vocabulary they may need to be successful in different subjects.
Questions for leaders:
- Are our teachers fully aware of the needs of our children with SEND?
- Do our teachers know how to meet those needs in their lessons?
- Do our teachers need further support and training in order to meet those needs?
Inflexible behaviour policies
In his book Mindware, psychologist Richard Nisbett writes about the common mistakes we make when considering our behaviour and that of others.
He says that we “Should pay more attention to context,” adding that, “This will improve the odds that we’ll correctly identify situational factors [the environment and people around us] that are influencing our behaviour and that of others… We should realise that situational factors usually influence our behaviour and that of others more than they seem to, whereas dispositional factors [innate to the child] are usually less influential than they seem.”
When thinking about situational factors, you might recognise a child’s behaviour as communicating “I’m scared!”, “I feel threatened!” or “I can’t do it!’
In contrast, when seeing a child’s behaviour as due to dispositional factors, you may often be thinking, “She’s so naughty!”, “He’s an absolute nightmare!” or “She just can’t sit still!”
By definition, inflexible behaviour policies don’t allow for context – such as when a child with sensory integration difficulties can’t bear to have their top button done up, chews on their cuffs or struggles to maintain eye contact.
Question for leaders: Are we making reasonable adjustments with our behaviour policies. as required by law, for children with SEND?
Progress over time
Does your analysis show that you’re using fixed-term exclusion repeatedly for the same students, with no discernible improvement in their behaviour? If so, have you considered the effectiveness of fixed-term exclusion as a behaviour improvement strategy?
It might seem to communicate that the situation has been dealt with by doing ‘something tough’, but exclusion without subsequent improvement is just respite.
In practice, it implies that we’ve either run out of ideas, or simply expect the child to sort their life out. In either case, you’re going to be in for a long wait.
As teachers, we change tack if our teaching strategies don’t lead to learning, yet we don’t always take this approach when examining the effectiveness of our behaviour management strategies.
Unless we take concerted action within schools to reduce the gross over representation of children with SEND in fixed-term and permanent exclusion statistics, we’ll continue to mistakenly associate SEND with behavioural difficulties.
Question for leaders: Are we persisting with sanctions for children who are continuing to struggle with their behaviour with no lasting improvement? If so, what are we going to do differently?
Jarlath O’Brien is director for schools at The Eden Academy. His new book Better Behaviour – a Guide for Teachers will be published by SAGE in 2018.
