More than 10,000 children in England disappeared from schools at a “critical stage” of their GCSE courses, according to Ofsted, raising fears that schools are continuing to illegally “off-roll” pupils to improve exam results. Analysis published by the schools inspectorate found that 20,000 pupils left or moved state schools between year 10 and year 11,…
Category: Pupil behaviour
Everyone welcome: inside the schools that haven’t expelled a child since 2013
Jason Thurley, headteacher at Beacon academy, near Grimsby, leans across the table explaining why yet another of his pupils was excluded before joining the school. “He’d brought in a £1 potato gun. It was at the bottom of his bag and so he goes up to his form tutor and says, ‘I don’t want to…
One in four teachers say pupils are being forced out to boost school rankings
One in four teachers in England say they have witnessed pupils being illegitimately removed from schools, often to artificially boost a school’s performance, according to a new survey published by Ofsted. The figures suggest the practice, known as “off-rolling” – pupils being shunted off a school’s roll in order to manipulate its exam results or…
Education secretary calls on schools to expel fewer pupils
The education secretary, Damian Hinds, has called on headteachers in England to expel fewer pupils, as an independent study revealed that almost eight out of 10 children who are permanently excluded come from vulnerable backgrounds. The long-awaited review of exclusions in England, carried out by a former minister for children and families at the Department…
Female teachers need protection from sexual harassment, says union
Female teachers are not being protected against “upskirting” videos and other forms of online sexual harassment by pupils, the leader of one of the UK’s main teaching unions has said, calling for schools and governments to take the issue more seriously. Chris Keates, the general secretary of the NASUWT, said her organisation had found multiple…
Year 6 pupils spend Easter at school cramming for Sats
Children at hundreds of primary schools in England are being asked to attend Sats revision classes over the Easter holidays, a teaching union official has revealed, warning that it was part of a disturbing trend. Darren Northcott, the NASUWT national officer for education, said revision classes for primary school pupils were unheard of five years…
Teaching union calls zero-tolerance school policies ‘inhumane’
A teaching union has described increasingly draconian behaviour policies in schools in England as “inhumane” and “damaging to pupil mental health”. The National Education Union (NEU), which is holding its annual conference in Liverpool this week, said zero-tolerance approaches to discipline were resulting in schoolchildren spending inappropriate and harmful amounts of time in isolation. Anna…
Number of parents fined for term-time holidays at record level
The number of parents issued with penalties because of their children missing school has soared to record levels in England, after councils were emboldened by a supreme court ruling in their favour. Figures from the Department for Education (DfE) for 2017-18 show that local authorities issued 260,000 penalty notices to parents for unauthorised absences during…
Excluded children can still have hope: here’s the proof | Gaby Hinsliff
This summer, when she leaves school, Leah wants to become an art therapist. Her classmate Holly wants to do something with psychology, and for Sam it’s an apprenticeship with the police. None of this would be unusual except that Sam (not his real name), a chatty and engaging 16-year-old, used to spend his days at…
Academy trust accused of using assemblies to intimidate students
Concerns have been raised about discipline policies at one of England’s biggest academy trusts, after teachers described assemblies in which pupils were routinely humiliated and made to cry. In a letter passed to the Guardian, three former teachers at Outwood Grange academy trust (Ogat) confirmed reports that the chain staged “flattening the grass” assemblies, in…
Funding cuts hamper knife crime prevention in England, say schools
Schools and colleges say funding cuts are hampering their efforts to prevent knife crime, according to a report commissioned by Ofsted that calls for “local community safety partnerships” to tackle the problem. The Ofsted report, based on a survey of secondary schools, further education and pupil referral units in London, found huge variations in how…