Call to scrap expulsions

SCHOOL exclusions unfairly punish vulnerable children and should be scrapped, an independent think tank has warned.

A study by Demos, out today, found more than 75 per cent of children expelled had special educational needs with more than a quarter of those excluded suffering from autism.

Difficult youngsters would benefit more by remaining the responsibility of their headteacher and given special support within their own school, Demos argued.

A leading teachers' union countered that calls for the system of exclusions to be dumped were "simplistic".

Demos' research, which was based on statistical analysis and workshops, found exclusion to be strongly linked to poor exam results.

Author of the report Sonia Sodha said: "These figures are shocking and show how badly we are failing to support vulnerable kids. Most other countries do not permanently exclude children from school in the same way we do.

"Instead of helping these children we are punishing and then banishing them. The system wastes money because it doesn't solve the problem, it just moves it out of sight and out of mind. Kids that get excluded are condemned to fail."

The report, supported by the Private Equity Foundation, claims that excluded children get a far poorer quality of teaching compared with those kept in school. This is despite three times more money being spent on youngsters in Pupil Referral Units, it suggests.

But Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT union, said: "This report and its recommendations take a rather simplistic view of a complex problem."