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It’s 8.45 a.m. and staff are making the final preparations for breakfast before the taxis start to arrive, delivering students – in varying moods, depending on what has happened since they left school yesterday. This isn’t a ‘mainstream’ school, it’s a Pupil Referral Unit (PRU) in the UK, for students who have been permanently excluded from their mainstream high school. The amazing professionals in my work ‘home’ make sure they are ready; our students have the skills of Houdini and the unpredictability of the British weather. Unfortunately, PRUs and their staff aren’t always valued and the PRU’s place ‘is not clear-cut in the schooling system’ (Enow & Kapcia, 2024) creating a halfway school for students in desperate need of support.

Breakfast is a time of informal assessment. You wouldn’t realise it, but by 9.15 a.m. every child has been ‘vetted’ and assessed to check how ready they are for the day. None of this is recorded, and it wouldn’t be understood unless you worked here and watched as it unfolded seamlessly in front of you. This is a natural process across multiple specialist provisions, an informal head count – so to speak; it can’t be quantified in figures. Yet policy and practice across the nation have decided that PRUs are measured in the same way as mainstream schools. The Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted) promotes ‘developing pupils’ motivation and positive attitudes to learning, as these are important predictors of attainment’ (Ofsted, 2023). What about achievement? What about their exclusion? How do you motivate a child who’s been told that they don’t belong in a school environment and yet are measured in the same way as if they do?

‘How do you motivate a child who’s been told that they don’t belong in a school environment and yet are measured in the same way as if they do?’

Ofsted doesn’t allow for a PRU to have its own measures, despite research suggesting that PRUs have ‘increasingly been regarded as potentially better placed than mainstream schools to provide education that is sufficiently flexible to meet the needs of some of the most vulnerable young people’ (de Jong & Griffiths 2006). If PRUs are acknowledged by academics as being the ‘better place’, why isn’t there flexibility to support that?

For the 8,000 students that were permanently excluded in England and Wales in ‘PRUs are the main form of alternative educational provision’ (Cooper, 2004; Jull, 2008). So, 8,000 students have been deemed unable to comply with the behaviour policy (specifically a ‘calm and orderly environment’ (Ofsted, 2023)) and been removed from that school, moved to another school, and then are expected to comply perfectly with it.

To be clear, some students flourish. PRUs can be ‘transformational for the young people through the joy of learning and enhanced feeling of belonging’ (Bagley & Hallam, 2016). Students are valued, respected, and have more practical and informal lessons that support their way of learning. Some return as employees, others go to university. These are children who are a product of an environment where they do not fit the mould of what is deemed ‘successful’ in a modern-day inclusive society that still excludes its most vulnerable children. For all the adaptions these settings make, all the inclusive practice, ultimately the Ofsted judgments are measured in the same way as a school that cannot meet the needs of these students, which is unequal and unfair.

If diversity and inclusion are values we aim to espouse as a society, should schools and the treatment of our most vulnerable young people not reflect this? Let’s change how we measure success – because our most vulnerable students deserve more than a system that wasn’t built for them.

References

Bagley, C., & Hallam, S. (2016). Managed moves: School and local authority staff perceptions of processes, success and challenges. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 20(4), 432–447. ÌýÌý

Cooper, P. (2004). Is ‘inclusion’ just a buzz-word? Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 9, 219–222. ÌýÌýÌýÌý

De Jong, T., & Griffiths, C. (2006). The role of alternative education programs in meeting the needs of adolescent students with challenging behaviour: Characteristics of best practice. Australian Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 16(1): 29–40.

Enow, L. O., & Kapcia, S. (2024). Pupil referral units (PRUs) and alternative education provision: A think piece on making a case for parental choice for children with SEND. Support for Learning, 39(4), 198–202.

Jull, S. (2008). Emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD): The special educational need justifying exclusion. Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs, 8(1), 13–18.

Michael, S., & Frederickson, N. (2013). Improving pupil referral unit outcomes: Pupil perspectives. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 18(4), 407–422.

Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills [Ofsted]. (2023). School inspection handbook: Guidance.