A new study from Public First sheds light on the views of parents, teachers, and young people on the often contentious topic of school exclusions.  

Researchers on the project undertook national polling and focus group conversations with teachers, young people, and school staff from across the country, from all types of background to understand the breadth of views on this topic.  

The conclusions of this work offer a new way of looking at the long-running exclusions debate. Far from the topline tug-of-war between ‘zero exclusions’ and ‘zero tolerance’ lies the majority of ordinary people with a stake in this issue, with views formed by the hard-won pragmatism of everyday life. 

Exclusions are seen as the necessary final sanction, and there is a perception that behaviour is worsening in schools. But no one is happy about exclusions, and thus there is a real desire for more to be done upstream: better SEND support, more investment in schools, and interventions such as mentoring to ensure that young people have the support they need. Teachers often feel that they can see exclusions coming, but with a system under considerable strain, don’t feel they or the wider school community are able to step in as much as they’d like to.  

There is also enthusiasm for a renewed focus on Alternative Provision (AP) – thinking about how AP can be done right, with the same high standards that parents expect of mainstream schools, and support for routes back into mainstream schooling that reflects parent’s preference for continuity of education.  

The report has 12 key findings: 

1. Behaviour is widely seen to be a serious issue in schools (and getting worse). 
2. There is a real sense, whether accurate or not, that schools can be inconsistent when determining punishments.  
3. Parents and teachers are more likely to ascribe poor behaviour to social factors than pupils.  
4. Teachers think they are supporting pupils as best they can with the resources they have.  
5. Teachers almost universally agree that pupils at risk of exclusion can be identified early.  
6. In some cases, expulsion is seen as the only credible option.  
7. However, those from ethnic minorities are more likely to find exclusions discriminatory.  
8. Teachers are more in favour of suspensions than pupils or parents 
9. There is disagreement around the best ways to improve behaviour in schools. 
10. There is widespread agreement that reducing exclusions should focus on tackling the causes of poor behaviour, including through providing mentoring and support.  
11. Parents need better communication around behaviour policies and expectations. 
12. There is widespread support for a better Alternative Provision (AP) system, alongside support for bringing students back into mainstream education where possible.  

While the report does not make policy prescriptions, there are 4 key findings that have significant implications for policymakers considering this issue:  

• Schools, teachers, and most importantly, students, need and want greater investment at the ‘top of the funnel’ for the most vulnerable young people. Better funding is desperately needed to support interventions – especially Social and Emotional Needs and mentoring – designed specifically to prevent the cycle of student decline witnessed too often in schools.  
• Greater investment in, and potential reform of, in-school SEND provision. As it stands, there are too many students in our schools who are not getting the support they need to engage with mainstream education and school authority.  
• Greater focus on exclusion and related areas across both ITT and CPD. The Initial Teacher Training curriculum is already full and stretched but, given the lack of knowledge displayed by teachers in our focus groups about exclusions, there seems to be a case for making room for this issue. There should also be more consideration given to CPD, to ensure that existing teachers have a grasp of exclusions more broadly, their own school or Trust’s processes, and the kinds of interventions that might reduce the need to exclude.  
• Greater investment in AP, with focus not only on expanding provision but also on the practice and pedagogy in AP settings. Our research had parents and teachers recanting stories of children who, having been removed from mainstream settings as the result of a sanction or additional needs, had nowhere to go. More AP places must be available, either in specialist provision or separate provision within mainstream settings, and there must be far more consideration of both what best practice looks like and how to effectively share this as part of a programme of high standards in AP. 

Full report available here.