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UNDER 11s FAILED BY SCHOOLS
Experts demand shake-up of services for excluded pupils
AN emerging lost generation of children who drop out of mainstream schooling before the age of 11 are being failed by the Town Hall, a hit-squad of education experts has warned.
Primary school headteachers have complained of a critical lack of support for children with behavioural difficulties, reflected by the staggering rise in the number of exclusions of under 11s.
The majority are moved on to the borough’s Pupil Referral Unit, a specialist facility for hard-to-reach children.
If they reach this stage, their chances of gaining an education are close to nil according to a damning new report by the Westminster Education Commission (WEC).
The report, released on Monday, exposes a catalogue of failings in the Town Hall’s management of schools and their 20,000 pupils. Council leader Colin Barrow reacted this week by vowing to tackle the challenges highlighted in the report.
The commission said current provision for children excluded from school is not offering “a credible education”, with intervention coming “too late”, while the
relationship between headteachers and the Town Hall is ?described as “virtually non-existent”.
In the three years to 2007/8 the number of excluded pupils under the age of 11 has jumped from 82 to 125. In the borough’s six secondary schools, the number has risen from 934 to 984. There are no figures for independently-sponsored academies because they operate outside of the local authority and not obliged to release the information.
The commission was set up by the council at the beginning of the year in an attempt to investigate standards across the borough’s schools.
Their key findings include:
•“A lack of mutual trust and evidence of a blame culture between the authority and schools community”;
• “Lack of exposure” to cultural attractions such as Westminster Abbey, the Tate and the Houses of Parliament;
•“Lack of support” for children with behavioural and emotional difficulties;
• Intervention comes too late with support only offered once a pupil is excluded;
• Critical permanent staff shortages at Beachcroft pupil referral unit;
• Only 20 per cent of pupils at Beachcroft return to mainstream schooling;
• An “identity crisis” at Westminster children’s services department;
• Relationship between academies and Town Hall “ill defined”.
The commission has issued a series of recommendations to deal with the problems it has identified, including ordering a fundamental review of services for children who face long-term exclusion from schools.
Other ideas include encouraging more councillors to become school governors, appointing a behavioural specialist, developing a boarding facility for the neediest of children and opening academies up to greater scrutiny.
The commission is chaired by the vice-chancellor at the University of Birmingham, Professor David Eastwood, and is made up of seven further education experts including headteachers, academics, and policy advisers. Set up in December last year, the commission spent seven months going into schools, consulting teachers and comparing the borough’s education departments with other local authorities before delivering its findings
Professor Eastwood said: “We believe that our recommendations can form the basis for effective action. If adopted, they would enhance the effectiveness of the local authority’s support for education, build new and more appropriate partnerships between the authority and its schools and educational establishments, better target resources on learners with a variety of special educational needs, improve transitions in pupil’s educational journeys, enrich the understanding of what constitutes a ‘good school’ and enable Westminster to lead the development of appropriate relationships with academies.”
Cllr Barrow said: “In throwing open our schools to external scrutiny and by setting up the commission we have placed ourselves at the very heart of one of the most important debates of our time – how we can radically improve the life chances of children in today’s society.
“The report was compiled by some of the best and the brightest thinkers in their field and it will help guide the council on how it can best work with local schools to tackle the challenges they face, while boosting the education and achievements of the city’s young people for years to come.” |
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