Criminal gangs deliberately targeting pupils excluded from school, warns MP

CRIMINAL GANGS are preying on children who have been excluded from school, a Sheffield MP has warned.

Sheffield Heeley MP Louise Haigh said police have told how gangs in parts of the country are deliberately targeting pupil referral units – which cater for children who have been excluded from school – to recruit vulnerable youths.

Ms Haigh, who is Shadow Minister for Policing, said this ‘alarming’ revelation showed more must be done to prevent young people ‘falling through the cracks’.

Sheffield has one of the country’s highest rates of pupils being expelled or suspended and she believes greater efforts are needed to keep the city’s children in school or deliver alternative provision.

“We have extremely high rates of exclusion in Sheffield so hearing from police that gangs are targeting pupil referral units and excluded children is really alarming,” she said.

“Sheffield’s exclusion rates are far too high, with nearly one in four pupils having been excluded at some schools.

“I want to see schools take more action to keep children in mainstream education.

“We also need more alternative provision, because the city has just one pupil referral unit, which is massively oversubscribed.

“Too many children are falling through the cracks, making them incredibly vulnerable to exploitation by organised criminal gangs.”

Ms Haigh said 89 per cent of children in custody have been excluded from school, and the rise in serious violence ‘cannot be decoupled’ from the rise in exclusions.

She has sympathy for schools, which she said are ‘horribly underfunded’ and are ‘incentivised’ to exclude children due to the premium Ofsted places on exam results.

She believes children who are excluded should be given more support to help them back into mainstream education.