Police boss blames school exclusions for knife epidemic Pupils disappear onto streets as heads hit targets
ADOUBLING in school exclusions in the West Midlands in the past eight years is one of the ‘biggest contributors’ to knife crime, according to the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC).
And David Jamieson believes some schools are simply ‘getting rid’ of troubled or low-attaining students in an attempt to improve their Ofsted results.
Figures from the Department of Education revealed that 727 children were excluded from schools in the region last year, up from just 380 in 2009-10.
All seven constituent authorities of the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) had an exclusion rate above the national average in 2016-2017, with Dudley’s exclusion rate the third worst in the country.
The national average for school exclusions is 0.10 per cent, with Coventry coming closest with a rate of 0.11 per cent. Both Sandwell and Birmingham have rates of 0.13, while Walsall has a rate of 0.14.
The data has also revealed that children from the West Midlands are twice as likely to be excluded from school (12 in every 10,000) as pupils in the South East (6 in every 10,000).
Mr Jamieson believes having so many young people excluded from schools has played a significant factor in the rise of violent crime in the region.
“You can see there’s nearly a doubling of the permanent exclusions,” he said.
“I imagine, as a former crusty old schoolmaster, that those are exclusions of young people, probably mid to later secondary years, who have become so difficult that the school can no longer contain them. And I understand that.
“What we haven’t got is really good alternative provision for those people... What would help is to have pupil referral units, the halfway houses, where they’re not permanently excluded but they are in agreement with parents, etc, that they are moved to another place, where they get more attention.
“That barely exists in Birmingham and the West Midlands.”
He added: “We shouldn’t be giving up on them. What’s happening is the system is almost giving up on them, they’re dropping out of the system, and they become the customers of the Chief Constable.
“And they wonder why we’ve got a problem with kids on the streets and knives. I think that is one of the biggest contributors to it – that these children who are not in school, particularly boys, they’re aged between about 12-15, that’s where we’re seeing the growth in crime.”
Mr Jamieson said schools are ‘off-rolling’ students, where low-attaining pupils are not officially excluded but are sent to be schooled at home, with most eventually dropping off the radar altogether.
“I suspect that schools are more likely to want to exclude very difficult children because they want to avoid bad Ofsted reports, however, even more worrying is this off-rolling that’s started happening,” he said.
“We don’t seem to have good records of how much it’s happening. What we do know is that Ofsted can see at Year 10 to Year 11 for a lot of schools there’s just a dip, and children just disappear off the roll.
“So you can see the percentage of exam passes suddenly increases because you’ve got rid of some of your n’er do wells’ and you’ve improved your exam profile.
“They just disappear – most of them it’s just an agreement to get them out the way, and then they’re on the street. And some of them are involved in county lines, they’re being sent by drug gangs off elsewhere, this is the criminal recruiting ground.
“So I think action’s got to be taken against those schools that are doing this, and not all schools are doing this.”