Home schooling proposal for unruly school pupils

A teachers' union has tabled a proposal to have children expelled more than three times schooled at home. Picture: TSPL

• Teaching union proposes pupils excluded more than times to be made to learn at home

• NASUWT’s motion calls for local authorities to provide parents of home-schooled children with equivalent funding

A motion due to go before the NASUWT’s annual general meeting next month calls for pupils who have been excluded on more than three occasions to be “compelled to learn at home”.

The motion, which is being moved by members from South Lanarkshire, calls on local authorities to provide funds to parents which amount to the average cost of schooling in the area.

“This AGM supports the idea that pupils who have been formally excluded from school on more than three occasions should be compelled to learn at home, and local authorities should facilitate this by giving parents, or carers, funds amounting to the average cost of schooling in the area,” the motion reads.

Last year, the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association, Scotland’s second largest teaching union, called for violent pupils who disrupt lessons to be removed from mainstream education.

The SSTA said the Scottish Government needed to overhaul its policy on school exclusions, which currently sees the worst behaved pupils taken out of one school and moved to another.

Figures from the Scottish Government show 26,844 pupils were excluded in 2010-11, with the number of secondary pupils excluded falling dramatically over the past decade.

However, 99 per cent of exclusions are for a fixed period, with pupils expected to return to their original school. Just 60 pupils were “removed from the register” in 2010-11, being transferred to another school or taught at a special educational provision.