Appraisal of education authorities ‘must go beyond number of formal exclusions’

A leading figure in children’s services has called for local
education authorities to be measured on school exclusions more
vigorously.

Andrew Christie, director of Hammersmith and Fulham’s children’s
trust in London, said there was a need for an assessment of LEAs
that went “beyond” measuring the number of formal exclusions.

“The reality, if you look at kids in care, is that they are not
actually formally excluded but it has been made very clear to them
by some schools that they are not welcome,” he said.

Children not in care were also informally excluded, said Christie.
While social services are held to account by a performance
indicator measuring the number of looked-after children who miss
more than 25 days of schooling, there is no parallel indicator for
the children LEAs report on.

“The LEA gets measured only on the number of kids who are formally
excluded,” he said.

Christie added that, although many councils placed looked-after
children into care in other local authorities, the LEAs in those
areas failed to take adequate responsibility for the
children.

Christie said the government should measure the performance of LEAs
for such children to ensure it took responsibility for all
looked-after children living in its area, not just those from its
own authority.