2) I also appeared on KM TV this evening (Friday). Medway Council contributed the following statement to the item:
Exclusion, whether fixed term or permanent is not a decision which any school takes lightly. Individual schools make their own decisions about fixed term exclusions and these are at the discretion of the headteacher. It is disappointing, to hear of the high levels of exclusions in Medway. In particular it must be noted that 88% of exclusions in 2015-16 are from academies. |
It is also disappointing that Medway Council apparently did not hear of the high level of exclusions until they were published yesterday. Perhaps this arose because,as the Council claims, the data belongs to the government (see my previous article) and they did not notice their own claim to be the second worst Authority in the country for exclusions (see below). The one consistent view held by the Council is that this calamity is nothing to do with them.
Sadly, Medway Council, in an attempt to hide the deplorable figures has refused an FOI request I submitted (although there has been no problem in previous years), and is now the subject of a complaint by me to the Information Commissioner. Another of a number of previous articles on this site looking at Medway data is: ‘Will the bad news ever stop coming for Medway: Massive hike in permanent and fixed term exclusions’, looking at the previous two years' figures, with the latest ones even worse!
In the past as now, Medway Council has sought to blame schools and academies completely, washing its hands of responsibility for what is a large social failure being created in the area. On the other hand Kent, which also had a massive problem with exclusions a few years back, has gone in the other direction thanks primarily to active intervention by the County Council in both maintained schools and academies.
Government guidance makes clear that ‘permanent exclusion should only be used as a last resort’, and offers advice on the avoidance of exclusion. The above data shows that in Medway, the strategy of removing pupils is used far more freely than this.
Permanent & Fixed Term Exclusions in Kent & Medway | ||||
Permanent
Exclusions
|
Permanent
Exclusion
Rate (%)
|
Fixed-Term
Exclusions
|
Fixed -Term
Exclusion
Rate (%)
|
|
Medway
2015-16
|
81 | 0.18 | 3295 | 7.30 |
Medway
2014-15
|
60 | 0.14 | 2920 | 6.67 |
Kent
2015-16
|
58 | 0.03 | 10538 | 4.70 |
Kent
2014-15
|
100 | 0.04 | 11050 | 4.98 |
National
2015-16
|
6685 | 0.08 | 339360 | 4.28 |
National
2014-15
|
5800 | 0.07 | 302980 | 3.88 |
Unfortunately, I cannot analyse these figures more closely because of Medway Council’s unlawful refusal to provide me with the data. What I am looking for is a school by school basis of these figure, which would pinpoint where the problems are. In 2013-14, Bishop of Rochester Academy permanently excluded 14 children, 20% of the total, and in 2014-15, Brompton Academy excluded 11 pupils and Robert Napier 10, a third of the total between them. Whilst my FOI request for the relevant exclusion data for children with SEND (Special Education Needs Disability) has now been ignored for three months, government figures show that no children attending Medway Special Schools have been permanently excluded for two years.
Medway Council will argue that as all but one of its 17 secondary schools and 41/79 primaries are academies, it has no control over events. The Medway SEND and Inclusion Strategy 2016-2020, apparently sets out how Medway will effect change to reduce its exclusion rates. In Paragraph 2.6 entitled ‘Permanent and fixed term exclusions from Medway schools and academy provision’ it records: ‘In the year 2013-14, 70 children and young people were permanently excluded from a Medway school. This exclusion rate, 0.16% of the state-funded school age population, is the highest percentage bar one other authority. During the same period, 2.48% of the Medway state-funded school population received fixed term exclusions, compared with 3.5% nationally . Although below the national average, the average number of days of fixed term exclusion per Medway pupil was 7.37 days: the highest in England’. With the permanent exclusion figures set out in the table above, the 2015-16 figures for fixed term exclusions are almost identical to those of 2013-14, at 2.54% of Medway pupils excluded and average level 7.3 days. So there can be no doubt the Authority knew, and presumably still knows, it has a massive problem.
The Council bemoans in this strategy the fact that because the two Pupil Referral Units are completely full of excluded pupils (121 last year), and other schools are unhappy about accepting excluded pupils, there is nowhere for them to go. It offers no strategies whatever for reducing numbers, in contrast to Kent (see below). See also my comment about Elective Home Education below, details of which, Medway Council is again refusing to provide. The massive increase in numbers 'electing', from 239 to 377 in just one year surely deserves some explanation from the schools where this is happening, but Medway wants it kept a secret.