Authorities told to do more for excluded children
Local authorities are not providing enough support for children who have been excluded from schools, a new report has found.
Ofsted highlighted concern over the quality of education for excluded pupils and the means of identifying children missing from school registers.
It identified a lack of consistency in the way schools and local education authorities tracked children’s whereabouts, achievements or destinations.
The Government has responded to the report by pledging a further £7 million for programmes to subject disruptive school pupils to military-style discipline.
The funding will sustain 1,500 places in 11 projects, run by ex-military personnel, to provide practical education to pupils with behavioural problems and those at risk of exclusion.
In their report, Ofsted inspectors called for improvements in information sharing between schools and local authorities, better planning and delivery of services and improvements in the evaluation and dissemination of good practice.
Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools, David Bell, said: “The level of support being offered to children missing from school is unacceptable, and is reinforcing the disadvantages they already face through social exclusion. Local education authorities must do more if we are to prevent even more children becoming disaffected and being lost from the system.”
However, local partnerships of statutory and voluntary bodies set up to combat social exclusion and the effects of child poverty are providing “satisfactory outcomes for children”, Ofsted adds.
Children’s Fund partnerships have helped to make children fell more confident and improve their self esteem, it said.
Schools Minister Stephen Twigg said the Government was implementing a strategy to address these concerns.
He commented: “As Ofsted reports, there is excellent practice in some local education authorities. Our challenge now is to help all of them to improve the quality of provision for excluded pupils and to identify children who may be missing from school rolls. We will achieve this through a sustained strategy of prevention, quality assurance and tracking.”
