Wiltshire schools pilot excluded pupils’ scheme (From Wiltshire Times)

Wiltshire schools pilot excluded pupils’ scheme

8:00am Saturday 28th January 2012 in Wiltshire

Headteachers in Wiltshire believe that shifting responsibility to schools to educate permanently excluded pupils will lead to better futures for those youngsters.

Wiltshire is one of seven areas taking part in a pilot scheme for the Department for Education where the responsibility for excluded pupils aged 11 to 16 will move from Wiltshire Council to schools in September.

The move is also happening as the council’s Young People’s Support Service (YPSS) was judged as failing by Ofsted and put into special measures last summer.

YPSS will cease on August 31, when its four centres, in Devizes, Chippenham, Trowbridge and Salisbury, will close.

About 80 people – teachers, teaching assistants and admin staff – work for YPSS and they are all at risk of redundancy.

Wiltshire Council will distribute the £2.6 million funding it had for YPSS to schools.

Schools in deprived areas where the rate of exclusion is higher will receive more of the money. Martin Watson, headteacher at Lavington School near Devizes, who sits on the county’s Schools Forum which discussed the funding, said some schools would employ their own staff to help pupils either at school or an off-school site but in some cases the work would be contracted out to companies who have experience of working with troubled youngsters.

Mr Watson said: “The money will be used to fund preventative work where schools are not yet at the point of permanently excluding a pupil. For some pupils who cannot remain on the school site the school may use their own staff or the work might be done by other providers, which could lead to pupils doing different courses and make them more employable and better citizens.

“By trying some different things I do believe it will reduce the number of permanently excluded pupils.”

James Colquhoun, headteacher of St Laurence School, Bradford on Avon, and chairman of the West Wiltshire Alliance, said: “At a time of calls for greater autonomy, responsibility and collaboration, provision for the most hard to reach does more naturally sit today with the young person’s school rather than a pupil referral unit such as YPSS.

“Schools also have some increasingly highly skilled staff in behaviour management, alternative programmes and employability skills who can absorb students from mainstream and deliver a more personalised package.”

Cllr Lionel Grundy, Wiltshire Council’s Cabinet member for children’s services, said: “We need to radically improve the prospects for these young pupils and we believe being part of this innovative Department for Education scheme will help us to achieve this.”