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For most children, school is their community. Yet too often there is little communication between schools and other services working with children.

Unified planning and delivery of all services for children (including education) under the new directors of children's services included in the children's green paper and last week's Queen's Speech should result in less fragmentation for families accessing services. And basing more health and social care provision in schools under plans for more "extended schools" ought to draw in some parents who might otherwise be reluctant to engage.

However, there is an irony in planning to base more services around schools when we are still a long way from enabling every child to go to school in the first place. Children "in need" - including those with disabilities, looked-after children, and those with behavioural problems - who in theory might stand to gain most from the proposals are also those most likely to be denied admission to, or be excluded from, school.

At the heart of the problem is an overemphasis on academic results. A report by the Audit Commission last winter confirmed what many people have been saying for years about the dangers of school league tables.¹

The narrow focus on attainment targets removes the incentive for schools to attend to the wider needs of children, but gives a clear incentive to exclude those who adversely affect their rating. As the report says: "Schools have struggled to balance pressures to raise standards of attainment and become more inclusive. This has been reflected in a reluctance to admit and a readiness to exclude some children, particularly those with behavioural difficulties."

For some children, the problems do not stop even if they manage to get a school place. The report says: "The existence of separate structures and processes for children with SEN [special educational needs] may have allowed their needs to be seen as somehow different - even peripheral - to the core concerns of our system of education."

Neil Crowther, education officer at the Disability Rights Commission, confirms that schools still view SEN as outside their core concerns.

"They need to start thinking about the impact of any proposal on children with SEN," he says. He proposes introducing targets to reduce the attainment gap between children with SEN and others, and giving more attention to "value-added measures" which focus on children's progress rather than absolute levels of attainment.

With the extension of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 to cover schools, more disabled children now attend their local school. But research by Eleni Burgess, a 16-year-old disabled girl attending a mainstream school, gives a powerful insight into how far schools are from integrating disabled children.²

Burgess describes how many wheelchair users are told to do physiotherapy instead of sport, or to just sit and watch. One boy she interviews, Tom, 14, says: "The teachers underestimate what I can do. I do loads of sport outside school, like basketball, tennis and cricket, and I can swim. Teachers never want to hear about what I can do but always assume I won't have done it before."

Even if the school is physically accessible, leaving the premises is often a problem. Everyone Burgess interviewed has a story of being excluded from an out-of-school activity. Karen, 13, says: "Other pupils are allowed out at lunchtime to go to a local caf' but I am not allowed to go with my friends because it is said by the school to be too much responsibility for them."

Children in the care system might also miss out on attending their local school, either because of placement moves or because schools refuse to accept them if they have a record of disruptive behaviour. And Allen Baynes, inclusion support services manager at Telford and Wrekin Council, believes schools which do accept looked-after children often fail to support them adequately. He says: "Children often arrive in a new school at the same time as moving to a new foster carer or children's home. They feel vulnerable and their behaviour may be challenging."

Baynes says the problem of excluding looked-after children in his authority has been solved by providing training and advice to designated teachers and governors. The borough has also created a post of corporate parenting manager to work closely with schools and other agencies to ensure looked-after children receive appropriate education.


The new duty on local authorities to promote educational achievement of children in care, announced in the green paper and to be included in legislation next year, ought to result in more councils following Telford and Wrekin's example. But Richard Jarrett, assistant director of children and families at Staffordshire, says there will still be too narrow a focus on academic achievement to the detriment of children in the care system and others.

Jarrett says: "Schools are in a difficult position because they are judged and pilloried for not getting those results. The wider social inclusion agenda hasn't been high in schools because that isn't what they are being measured on. If a looked-after child has received all sorts of rich benefits from attending a school, that should be acknowledged."

Asylum-seeking children are also vulnerable to exclusion. Nora McKenna, children's education policy adviser at the Refugee Council, says schools are often unwilling to accept asylum-seeking children, particularly older ones who may have had little chance to attend school in the country they are fleeing. "Some schools worry about how they'll cope. It's understandable given the pressure on schools to achieve results."

In some cases, asylum seekers are even told - wrongly - that their children cannot attend mainstream education until they receive a decision. McKenna says: "Some children are just invisible in the system and the education authority doesn't know they are here."

Research by crime prevention charity Nacro indicates there may be as many as 100,000 children in the UK who do not attend school.³ Director of education and employment Craig Harris says: "There are lots of good initiatives coming from government but there's still a strong incentive for schools to lose certain kids. We have young people in our projects who are anxious to get back into school and whose parents want them to, but they can't, very often because of their past behaviour."

Many more young people choose to skip school because they do not perceive education as relevant to their lives. Plans for more vocation-based education for those 14 to 19 year olds who want it are already in the pipeline. This may provide part of the answer. Nacro's provision, which includes a range of vocational education plus basic literacy and numeracy and life skills, is often intended as a stepping stone for young people who have been excluded or have dropped out, with the aim of eventually reintegrating them back into mainstream education.

Harris says: "Kids say 'this is so much better than school. We get treated with respect here'. They feel they are treated with contempt by teachers. It says something about the culture of big comprehensives and the exhaustion of so many teachers."

The government's intention of putting education at the centre of children's services reform sounds like common sense. But to have any chance of succeeding, schools and the national curriculum must become more inclusive first.

¹ Special Educational Needs, A Mainstream Issue, The Audit Commission, 2002 available online at www.auditcommission.gov.uk/reports

² E Burgess, Are We Nearly There Yet? Do Teenage Wheelchair Users Think Integration Has Been Achieved in Secondary Schools in the UK? from arewenearlythereyet@btopenwrld.com

³ Missing Out, Nacro, November, 2003