The exclusion landscape across the country is changing. In Scotland, for example, we have seen a decrease in cases of temporary school exclusions from 44,794 in 2008/09 to 11,676 during the last academic year. Only one pupil was permanently excluded in 2022/23.
The background to all this is complex. While the recent recorded increase in violence and verbal abuse in Scottish schools has seen calls for much more clarity from the government on what sanctions are available to school leaders, the incorporation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into Scots law has seen increased pressure to reduce exclusions and to look for approaches based more on promoting positive relationships.
Very few school leaders or teachers would argue against improved relationships being a good thing but, as a long-serving headteacher, there are some non-negotiables which if not met I believe would always see a pupil sent home for a period of reflection and readjustment and, in some cases, to determine whether or not returning to the school environment is the best option.
Violence against staff or other pupils, bringing weapons into school and drug offences all qualify while, in the majority of cases, so would verbal abuse of staff – although the latter can be problematic when pupils have additional support needs which make such abuse more likely through no fault of their own.
As more understanding of the teenage brain, the effects of trauma and adverse childhood experiences has developed and the impact of exclusion on vulnerable pupils has become more apparent, schools have increasingly looked to other alternatives – especially when there is increased scrutiny on numbers of exclusions including, in Scotland, during inspection visits.
At my own Scottish school, we decided to take a good look at what we were doing and to develop an “alternative to exclusion” base which would serve as a substitute to sending children home for breaches of school rules and as a place where pupils could be reintegrated if there had been no alternative but to issue a formal exclusion.
The initial problem was how to staff the room in a time of decreasing budgets and with cuts to pupil support. We were lucky in receiving extra funds from the Scottish government as part of the Scottish Attainment Challenge. This initiative was set up to close the poverty-related attainment gap and to enable schools in areas of high deprivation to try innovative ways to do so.
With the additional money we were able to employ an extra support teacher on a promoted salary and two pupil support assistants to staff the room. It was extremely important that we employed the correct teacher.
The room was set up based on nurture principles, so we needed somebody who worked to these principles – namely that children’s learning is understood developmentally, that a safe base and nurturing environment is all-important, that behaviour is communication, and that transitions are significant in a child’s life.
While many people in education would profess to adhere to these principles, it is by no means a given especially when considering that “all behaviour is communication”.
There is more than one teacher who has told me that this may be true but that, in some cases, the child is trying to communicate that they are a pain in the neck.
Our second piece of luck was in having a room available for the base to occupy and we located it in a mobile cabin on the school grounds – very close but not within the school itself.
This ensured that pupils using the base realised there was some consequence in the case of poor choices, but that the location was a stepping stone to them being brought back into the school.
In the room itself, staff engage pupils in reflective exercises helping them to consider the reasons for the way they acted and there is time available to talk them through alternative strategies.
With pupils at risk of multiple exclusions – who had specific behavioural issues – more long-term input was required. The principal teacher in the room works with the child to assess their social, emotional, and mental development using tools such as Boxall Profiles. They come up with individual behavioural assessments and positive behaviour plans which are revisited at regular intervals.
After a while, the room has built up a group of regular attendees. Over time, we saw a marked reduction in behavioural issues in the classroom, that these pupils had an increased recognition of their particular issues and what they could do to cope.
In addition, and importantly given that funding was aimed at increased attainment, pupils in the room were given tuition in English, maths, and other subjects if they were finding it difficult to work in the classroom. Subject teachers would communicate with the staff in the base, provide resources for exam preparation and liaise closely with the marking and to discuss progression. There were some remarkable successes. One boy with considerable anger management issues, from a family with a history of incarceration and unemployment left school to pursue a career in construction after being the first member of his family ever to gain formal qualifications.
Others, who had been excluded from school on more than one occasion in their earlier years, completed successful transitions to college or work. These were opportunities which would have been completely unexpected in previous years.
Ultimately, despite the success of the room in reducing exclusions and in increasing attainment for some of our most vulnerable pupils, the end of attainment challenge funding led to its demise.
We have been fortunate in managing to maintain some of the principles behind the initiative in a different format and have demonstrated that it is possible to find working alternatives to the more punitive treatment of vulnerable pupils which happened in the past.
As the Scottish government now looks at an action plan to combat problematic and violent behaviour in the classroom, it could do worse than looking at proper nationwide funding of such proven methods in the future.
- The author is a headteacher working in Scotland.