Agenda item

12.00

Sharon Oliver, Education Inclusion Manager, will attend for an in-depth analysis of permanent and fixed terms exclusions of pupils in Year 10 so far in this academic year.

At its meeting on 25 April 2016, the Committee received a presentation on exclusions in Oxfordshire schools and requested that officers provided an analysis of Year 10 data where there appeared to be an abnormally high number of permanent exclusions.

The Committee had before it a report (ESC10) which provided an analysis of the rate of permanent exclusions in year 10.  Sharon Oliver, Education Inclusion Manager explained that she was surprised at the increase in rate of permanent exclusions of pupils from Oxfordshire schools this year.  To date officers had been notified of 57 permanent exclusions.  This compared with 43 permanent exclusions this time in 2014/15.

Furthermore, the rate of permanent exclusion of pupils in year 10 had increased year on year for the last 3 years.  At this point in the year in 2013/14 there were 6 exclusions from this year group (23% of all permanent exclusions).  Last year this figure increased to 15.  (35% of all permanent exclusions).  This year officers had been notified of 19 permanent exclusions from this year group which is 33% of the total. The use of permanent exclusion in Year 10 was significantly higher than any other year group.  (The next highest year groups were years 8 and 9 with 8 permanent exclusions each).

Fifteen secondary schools had permanently excluded one or more pupils from year 10 so far this year.  In contrast fixed term exclusions were more evenly distributed throughout the secondary phase.  Officers had been notified of 510 fixed term exclusions of pupils in year 10 so far this year which was 20% of the total.

Reasons for exclusion in this year group were fairly similar with persistent disruptive behaviour and verbal abuse and threatening behaviour towards an adult being the most commonly used categories.  Six girls and 13 boys had been permanently excluded from year 10 this year.  This was an unusually high ratio of girls.  The total across all year groups was 9 girls and 48 boys. That meant that two thirds of the girls who had been permanently excluded so far this year have been year 10 pupils.

Oxfordshire County Council’s officers and schools were working collaboratively to avoid the use of permanent exclusion for children who were looked after.  There had been a number of pupils who had been at significant risk of permanent exclusion but alternative solutions had been found.  There had been one year 10 pupil who became looked after following a permanent exclusion.

In response to questions around why officers believed the exclusions in year 10 to have gone up, Ms Oliver explained that she was unable to give a definitive answer as to why the permanent exclusions had increased, although exclusions could often increase when there was a new headteacher or that possibly this was due to MAT broad policies not being compatible with local policies.

Members note the particularly high numbers at Didcot Girls School and asked officers whether there was anything the council could be doing in relation to this.  Ms Oliver commented that she was concerned that 4 looked after children had been excluded and undertook to contact the virtual school in relation to this.

Members expressed concern over the number of schools that did not provide data to the Council on their exclusions rates.  Officers commented that it was an on-going problem.  In some cases, data was not provided due to an incompatibility of systems, making it very difficult for schools to provide the data, but in some cases it was that some schools just would not provide the data on a whole school basis.

RESOLVED: to request that officers bring a full report to the next meeting of the Committee on the where things were falling down in relation to ICT problems around schools reporting exclusions and to request that the virtual school provide a report on looked after children.