A third of children in care face school exclusion, new research shows

New research from University College London (UCL) has found students in England with a care background are more likely to be excluded.

The research, which was published in the online journal Child Abuse & Neglect earlier this week, used anonymised data from the Department for Education’s National Population Database, which covered all children starting state secondary school in September 2011 and 2012 across the country.

Overall one million students records were analysed.

To conduct their research, experts examined the proportion of pupils who had been excluded – either suspended temporarily or permanently expelled – during their time at secondary school and had a history of receiving social care or special educational needs (SEN) services.

Following their analysis, researchers found 13% of all children were excluded at least once in secondary school.

However, among children with social care involvement, this figure was much higher – a third (33%) of children with a history of any form of social care in years four to six, faced exclusion during their time at secondary school.

Against this backdrop, researchers also discovered around 40% of children who had a child protection plan or were looked after in state care in years four to six were excluded at least once.

If children also received SEN services, their probability of being excluded was even higher, researchers found. For example, 46% of children who had both a child protection plan and a history of SEN services were excluded at least once in secondary school.

Lead author, Dr. Matthew Jay, said: ‘These findings speak to the interesting problems that many children and families face that mean they cannot access education – something which is a fundamental human right.

‘We examined two different groups of children, who the state has recognised as needing extra help with education and staying in school. And yet, they are still being excluded very frequently and much more…than other children.’

‘Many children who receive social care services also receive SEN provision at some point throughout their school career,’ Dr Jay said. ‘A large part of this is due to social, emotional and mental health needs – which is not surprising given the adversity they faced earlier on.’

The findings, which came from research that only looked into children who received social care/SEN provision, but some children fail to obtain access from them suggesting the level of exclusion from schools could be higher, showed that there was a lot of variation across local authorities – this may be due to differences in the way some councils and schools respond to the needs of their pupils.

Dr. Louise Mc Grath-Lone, a co-author of the study and former secondary schools teachers, said: ‘This problem won’t be resolved until school policies acknowledge that, through no fault of their own, trauma can impact the behaviour of children in care.

‘Zero tolerance behaviour policies can mean that relatively minor things, such as acting out in class, can set children on a path of escalating sanctions that ultimately ends in exclusion.’

This research has been published within the same week that the government has named the first areas in England to test out children’s care reforms – a new method that will help children in care stay closer to their families and loved ones to prevent them from experiencing too much early onset trauma. 

Image: Annie Spratt