Top cop: Don’t blame heads who expel troublemakers
HEADTEACHERS should not be blamed for excluding problem children likely to be sucked into crime, a top police officer said yesterday.
But Sara Thornton, chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, said services to help troubled pupils are “just not there in the way they were five or 10 years ago”.
Analysis shows knife crime soaring in most regions and at least 11 teenagers have been stabbed to death this year. Ms Thornton, the former chief constable of Thames Valley, demanded “a much more concerted response from Government”. She told the Home Affairs Select Committee that the most senior people should gather round and say, “What can we do jointly to solve the problem?”
Ofsted has warned that vulnerable children are being “coached” by adult gang members to get themselves excluded from school. Research by the education watchdog stated almost half of young people at a pupil referral unit in London knew someone who had carried a knife, compared to one in four pupils in the capital.
Referring to the debate around school exclusions and knife crime, Ms Thornton said: “I don’t think my colleagues, police and crime commissioners or the Mayor were in any way blaming the headteachers for making those difficult decisions. What they were saying is if the number of children excluded or off-rolled is going up, what is the provision for those highly vulnerable young children?
“And we do know that they are very often the sorts of vulnerable children that gangs look to recruit.”
Ofsted chief Amanda Spielman added: “There is evidence that points to a correlation between the two, but of course this does not prove causation.
“It seems just as likely that exclusions and knife crime are two symptoms of the same underlying problems, exacerbated by cuts to local authority children’s services.”