Behaviour and Exclusions Consultation Launched

The Department for Education (DfE) have launched a consultation on proposed changes to the Behaviour in Schools Guidance and Suspension and Permanent Exclusion Guidance. As the statistics show that pupils with SEND are over-represented in the statistics for exclusions, this will be of great interest to the SEND sector.

The consultation comes in response to the 2019 Timpson Review of School Exclusion. Within this it was found that some school policies impacted negatively on different groups with protected characteristics and that a one-size-fits all ‘zero tolerance’ approach failed pupils with SEND and some such policies were potentially in violation of the Equality Act.

The proposed and updated Behaviour in Schools Guidance has separate sections identified for pupils with SEND and makes more references to the Equality Act and references the Children and Families Act, which was not previously the case, and the use of reasonable, proactive adjustments.

The proposed Permanent Exclusion Guidance has been updated to reflect the new ambition to create high standards of support for ‘behaviour’ as identified in the behaviour guidance along with changes to the legislation governing the disciplinary school suspension and permanent exclusion processes.

Interested parties are asked to review the question document and enter their response online by the 31st March 2022.