Institute floats plan for excluded pupils

Institute floats plan for excluded pupils Secondary schools
would be forced to keep places available for excluded pupils under
ideas floated by an influential think-tank.

The Institute for Public Policy Research argues that schools should
hold back places at the beginning of the school year in order to
cater for this group.

The IPPR says that this could be one of the requirements the
government puts in place in order to help achieve its goal for all
secondary schools, including foundation schools, to sign up to a
list of admission protocols by September 2007.

Another proposal from the think-tank is for no fixed-term
exclusions to be for longer than three days in cases where there is
no available alternative provision such as pupil referral
units.

The ideas have come out of research carried out by the think tank
and may be included in a report and action plan for policy-makers
to be published in September. The study sought the opinions of 250
pupils, support staff, teachers, governors and headmasters in 10
secondary schools.