Department of Children’s Services Education and Learning Annual Exclusion Figures September 2019 – July 2020* Exclusions Team Data Tables Courtesy of the Information Management Team 1 Bradford School Exclusions Team Officers dealing with pupil exclusions from school sit within Bradford’s Children’s Services and can be contacted for exclusion advice by emailing [email protected] or calling 01274 439333/432446 to speak to an Exclusions Officer. The team is committed to supporting the inclusion of children and young people and preventing exclusion from school. We aim to achieve this through multi-agency partnerships, using findings from data and evidence based approaches. Following a permanent exclusion an officer in the exclusions team will work with those involved to ensure that the statutory exclusion guidance is followed to minimise disruption to a pupil’s education so that exclusion from school does not mean exclusion from education. The Exclusion Team has the following responsibilities: Ensure that the Local Authority’s statutory responsibilities relating to exclusion are met Gives advice to schools, parents and carers and other professionals on statutory and non-statutory exclusion processes Maintains an exclusions helpline 5 days per week Provides statistical information to the DfE Offers training to Governors and school staff on their statutory responsibilities connected to school exclusion Offers advice to support schools in the use of alternatives to exclusion, such as a managed move, Pastoral Support Plan (PSP), phased reintegration and referrals to other supporting services Reviews both fixed period and permanent exclusions Advises and guides governors on all aspects of exclusion law Attends permanent and over 15 days exclusion Governing Board Meetings in maintained schools and where invited for Academy schools, as appropriate Attends Independent Review Panel Hearings These responsibilities are derived from, Exclusion from maintained schools, academies and pupil referral units in England: Statutory guidance for those with legal responsibilities in relation to exclusion (DfE September 2017). 2 Permanent Exclusion Provision in Bradford Bradford provides education from day six of a pupil’s permanent exclusion at either Park Pupil Referral Unit (PRU) or at Bradford Alternative Provision (AP) Academy. Park PRU is rated ‘Good’ by OfSTED 2020 and Bradford AP Academy, was deemed ‘Outstanding’ at their last OfSTED in 2015. The exclusions team together with our AP and PRU providers ensured all our permanently excluded pupils have provision on or before the 6th day after the permanent exclusion. Bradford continues to work closely with our AP and PRU to ensure sufficient places for permanently excluded pupils. Report limitations The academic year 2019-20 saw the unprecedented school closures (from the 23.03.2020) to many of our children and young people with only Key Worker and our most vulnerable pupils attending due to the impact of the Covid 19 pandemic. This has resulted in exclusion data that is not straightforwardly comparable to previous years. To mitigate against this the report, in many instances, has broken the data into terms rather than whole year figures. Where full academic year data is given as comparisons in the permanent exclusion narrative and tables readers are requested to keep in mind the above caveat. One consequence of breaking the data into terms is that the pupil numbers will not balance. This is caused by the use of unique UPN, which can result in the same child could be counted up to three times (once for each term). This allows a clear understanding of the number of pupils affected in each term. Exclusions Overview - Permanent Exclusions Bradford has rising numbers of permanent exclusions published data, 2019 (LAIT), up from 0.03 to 0.06 when expressed as a percentage of the school population. This remains below average regionally and nationally. Nationally in 2018-19 the rate was 0.10, the same as the previous year (table 2): There were 52 permanent exclusions in 2019-20, just under the rate of the previous year (2018-19) when there were 57. There were no permanent exclusions in the summer term (2019-2020), it is possible that without the partial school closure the number may have been considerably higher (tables 1 & 1a). During the academic year 2019-2020 the school population increased by 0.3%. There were 57 permanent exclusions in the academic year (2018-19) which was over double the number of exclusions than in the 2017- 2018 academic year, where there were 24 permanent exclusions (table 1). This was an increase of 138%; the school population increased by 3.4%. In the 2019-2020 academic year there were four primary phase permanent exclusions, down from 13 the previous year, and 48 secondary phase permanent exclusions, up from 44 the previous year. Secondary phase exclusions in the 2019-2020 academic year were much higher when compared to 2018-19 Autumn and Spring term totals, a 60% increase (18 exclusions, (tables 1 & 1a)). 3 Year Nine were the most excluded year group in the 2019-2020 academic year (13) similar to 2018-19 (14), followed by year 11 (12). The number of year 11 pupils permanently excluded was double that of the previous year. KS4 accounted for 42% of the excluded pupils in the 2019-2020 academic year compared to 30% in the previous year (tables 9 & 9a). There were no Children in Care to the local authority, Special School, or PRU permanent exclusions in the academic year 2019-2020. Those pupils at School Support on the SEN register account for over half of the permanent exclusion group (table 8). Boys (44) were over five times more likely than girls (8) to be permanently excluded (tables 9 & 9a), much more than the national average of more than three times as likely indicated by the 2018/19 permanent and fixed-period exclusions in England (Feb 2021). In terms of ethnicity, pupils whose heritage is Roma/Roma Gypsy and White/Asian are over represented in the permanent exclusion data suggesting they are more vulnerable to exclusion (table 10). The top three reasons for permanent exclusion (tables 7 & 7a) in order of highest: Physical assault against an adult (16); Persistent disruptive behaviour (15); and ‘Other’ (5). These have been the top three reasons in the last three years but this is the first year physical assault against an adult has hit the top spot. The ‘Other’ code has been withdrawn for the 2020/21 academic year with new reason codes added, so reasons for all exclusions should be clearer next year. There has been a large increase year on year of pupils who have been permanently excluded where they have had no past fixed term exclusions (table 5) which could evidence why persistent disruption has moved to the second reason for exclusion after those for physical assault against an adult. Permanent exclusions range from 0.71 when expressed as a percentage of those on roll to 0.06 ((table 6), schools with none are not listed) for academic year 2019-2020. At least a further 12 permanent exclusions were avoided by the Exclusion Team working with schools and other teams to look at creative solutions and support. Exclusions Overview - Fixed Period Exclusions Overview Bradford has rising fixed period exclusions over the three-year period where full year data is available, from 8,327 in 2016-17 to 10,453 in 2017-18 to 14, 787 in 2018-19 (table 3). The published data, 2019 (LAIT), details Bradford’s rising fixed period exclusions are up 1.1% to 5.89% when expressed as a percentage of the school population. While this is below the regional average (8.3) it is for the first time above national average at 5.36%, an increase of 0.3% (table 4). Reviewing 2019-2020 fixed term exclusions from the Autumn and Spring term compared to the previous year’s data of the same period details an increase in Autumn Term exclusions and a decrease in the Spring Term (table 3a). In the 2019-2020 academic year, overall persistent disruptive behaviour remains the most prevalent reason for a fixed-term exclusion followed by verbal abuse/threatening behaviour against an adult. Reasons for fixed exclusion differs across the school groups with physical assault against an adult top in the primary and PRU groups, with persistent disruption cited in the secondary phase school group, and ‘other’ in the Through Schools (tables 11 &11a). 4 The two previous academic years to 2019-20 showed an increase in days lost across all school groups; this year with the two terms data available compared to the two terms data in the previous two years also details an increase in Primary and Secondary but not in Through Schools and PRU’s (table 11) The number of average days lost per pupil remains at five days in the 2019-2020 academic year, as in 2018-19 (table 11), however when reviewed by SEN category those without SEN lose an average of four days compared to five days for those with SEN (table 16 & 16a). While boys are over five times as likely than girls to be permanently excluded, this drops to three times more likely to be fixed term excluded than girls when taken as an average over the years reviewed. However, when reviewed at primary and secondary level there is a much higher chance that boys will be fixed term excluded than girls within the primary phase than secondary (table 12). Independent Reviews Parents of four pupils requested that an independent review panel (IRP) considers the decision of the Governing Board, all were for secondary aged pupils. Of these one IRP recommended the Governing Board reconsiders and the pupil was reinstated. Two were upheld and one is yet to be determined as the meeting has been delayed due to the Covid 19 pandemic restrictions.