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Artwork created by Young People in alternative provision

‘I’m a genius, who’s taking a photo?’ (Kinsella et al., 2019)

‘We do stupida stuff here’ (Johnston, 2020)

These aren’t just offhand comments – these are the voices of young people navigating their education within alternative provision (AP). The first is a playful spark of pride in a creative outcome; the second, a candid appraisal of a system that tends to see her potential through a limited lens. Together, these different perspectives challenge us to rethink what the ‘formal, informal and hidden’ curriculum looks like for students on the margins of the mainstream educational system.

According to the Department for Education (DfE, 2013), AP operates for students in England and Wales who ‘because of exclusion, illness or other reasons, would not otherwise receive suitable education’. While APs must offer the basic national curriculum, they are still quite free to determine the nature of their offer, with ‘local needs’ being a useful watchword for what eventually shapes the offer. Because AP serves more than 30,000 students in England and Wales and is sustained by a vast array of council-maintained, academised and unregistered providers, we have concerns about the ongoing expansion of a fragmented sector without much of an explicit curricular vision (see Pennacchia et al., 2025).

APs have long faced pressure to raise standards, with government reports regularly flagging concerns about pupils’ wellbeing, academic outcomes, criminalisation and job prospects (Ofsted, 2016; Taylor, 2012). But we must not forget that the sector itself has a long and troubling history. As Daniels and Cole (2002) highlight, the language used to describe learners excluded from the mass system has shifted over time in telling ways – from ‘the children of the perishing and dangerous classes’ and ‘moral imbeciles’ in the early 1900s to ‘maladjusted children’ in the mid-20th century. This legacy matters because AP continues to disproportionately serve marginalised groups, many of whom leave with few formal qualifications. Therefore, while the language surrounding young people in AP might have evolved in ways we now deem as more socially acceptable (such as ‘emotional and behavioural needs’, ‘emotionally based school non-attendance’) we would still do well to heed Tomlinson and Johnston’s (2024) warning that the sector still risks becoming an ‘elaborate sub-system’ that reproduces social disadvantage if it prioritises pathways and credentials that are widely undervalued.

In a recent parliamentary debate, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education, Claire Couthinho () summarised her party’s on AP in the following terms:

In our new approach to AP, instead of it being a permanent destination, it will be used as an intervention, in order to support those who may feel anxious, or struggle with their behaviour, in mainstream school.

Within this formulation, AP becomes less about any value it might have as a curricular environment and more about its role in facilitating adaption to life in mainstream school with the deficit being firmly located within the pupil themselves rather than considering the role of their wider environment. We have since changed national governments, but we are yet to see a departure from this general outlook on APs and their pupils.

‘There is a danger that learners in alternative provision become reduced to “emotional” and “behavioural” beings while their potential as “thinking” and “knowing” beings gets forgotten.’

Today, the general trend in AP is towards practices that develop social and emotional skills (such as trauma-informed practice, anger management, nurture groups; see Malcolm, 2021). While such approaches hold considerable value, it is important to remember that when we talk about curriculum in AP, we’re talking about what learning is prioritised and why this is the case. At present, there is a notable quietness around such questions. But when this happens, there is a danger that learners in AP become reduced to ‘emotional’ and ‘behavioural’ beings while their potential as ‘thinking’ and ‘knowing’ beings gets forgotten.

In future, we hope to see more focus on these social justice issues around the curriculum in AP. Specifically, we call for more explicit attention to epistemic justice issues in AP so that young people attending are not only supported emotionally, but are also given access to powerful knowledge that enables them to think critically, make sense of their world, and advocate for themselves with growing confidence and meaningful impact.

References

Daniels, H., & Cole, T. (2002). The development of provision for young people with emotional and behavioural difficulties: An activity theory analysis. Oxford Review of Education, 28(2–3), 311–329.

Department for Education [DfE]. (2013). Statutory guidance: Alternative provision.

Johnston, C. (2020). Dis/locating Imagined Futures: The disabled habitus and young disabled people in alternative provision. People, Place and Policy Online, 14(2), 173–186.

Kinsella, C. A., Putwain, D. W., & Kaye, L. K. (2019). ‘You heard me swear but you never heard me!’: Negotiating agency in the pupil referral unit classroom. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 26(1), 41–60.

Malcolm, A. D. (2021). Relationships in alternative provision: A review of the literature. Relationships Foundation. ����

Office for Standards in Education [Ofsted]. (2014). Alternative school provision: Findings of a three year survey.

Pennacchia, J., Axler, M., King, S., & Clapham, A. (2025). Choice and diversity in governance in the English alternative provision sector: Implications for educational equity. British Educational Research Journal, 51(4), 1991–2012.

Taylor, C. (2012). Improving alternative provision. London: Department for Education.

Tomlinson, S., & Johnston, C. (2024, March). Joining the dots? Special education and alternative provision. In FORUM (Vol. 66, No. 1, pp. 91–99). Lawrence and Wishart.