6. How is the Welsh Government supporting pupils excluded from school? OAQ53939

Our message is clear: exclusion should be used as a last resort. Where exclusion cannot be avoided, our exclusion guidance sets out the support schools and local authorities must put in place for all children who have been excluded from school and from pupil referral units.

Thank you. Last August, a landmark court ruling in a school exclusion case made it clear for the first time that all schools must make sure they have made appropriate adjustments for autistic children or those with other disabilities 'before they can resort to exclusion'. I've recently in the last two weeks received a letter from a constituent, a father with whom I've been working for some months after his young autistic son was excluded from school, with a decision letter regarding their Special Educational Needs Tribunal for Wales case, which ruled that there had been no evidence of reasonable adjustments. It said the school had been forced to admit that the exclusion itself was discriminatory, and it required the school to provide a written apology, to include an apology for the disproportionate length of the exclusion, an apology for not providing sufficient support to address their son's additional learning needs, and explaining how the school will address the issues raised in this decision. It also instructed them to arrange additional training for staff and governors in relation to autistic spectrum conditions and ALN more generally at a level that is more advanced than introductory level. 

This isn't the only case I have like this; I have many. At a time when local authorities and schools should be fully aware of the ALN Act and the impending significant changes, how are you going to on the ground ensure that children like this don't continue to be punished for being who they are, and are engaging with staff who truly understand what their needs are so that they can live happy, healthy and fulfilled lives? 

Thank you, Mark. A significant proportion of the £20 million ALN transformation programme funding will be used to support activity to upskill the workforce so that they can better recognise and better meet the needs of all learners with ALN and learners with autism. And that's one of the reasons why we have taken through our ALN legislation and why we are committed to reforming it. Under the new system, the learner will be placed at the heart of the process, and better collaboration between agencies will be encouraged, and that's to ensure that the needs of learners are identified early and the right support is put in place for them so that their educational opportunities can be properly met and their aspirations reached.  

I wholly endorse what the Minister has said about exclusions needing to be an absolute last resort. Sadly they are sometimes necessary, and as well as children then perhaps being educated at home, in academic terms, for a short time, those children lose out on a whole range of social opportunities that are associated with being in school, and all kinds of other learning and access to sport. What are the Minister's expectations of local authorities with regard to how such children, who perhaps only temporarily are being taught at home, but who are being taught at home, are unable to participate in activities like sport, like art, music, drama—some of the enrichment activities that go beyond the purely academic curriculum?  

Can I just take this opportunity again to say that exclusion should be an absolute last resort? I recognise that we have got more to do to ensure that schools and individual practitioners are better supported to understand why children have difficulties in school that can result in behaviour that ultimately, in some cases, leads to exclusion. Only this week in the 'Mind over matter' group, we were talking again about the need to improve support for teachers with regard to understanding the process of adolescence—literally, the neurological changes that can't be seen as a child goes through puberty, which mean that sometimes their behaviour might not be particularly good—but a better understanding of the challenges that adolescence brings. We are absolutely clear, where a child has to be excluded, that there is a responsibility for both the school and for the local authority to ensure that that child has access to a range of opportunities, both academic and social. We are currently working on the implementation of our education other than at school improvement plan, because we do know that curriculum opportunities can be severely curtailed for those children who find themselves out of school. Clearly, that is not in their best interests in many cases. 

Far fewer pupils are actually excluded in Wales than in the middle of the last decade, from over 450 in 2004-05 to just 150 in 2016-17. So, Minister, would you agree with me that this is to be warmly welcomed and that pupils are best served in nurturing and supportive education environments, and that such positive outcomes validate the progressive guidance issued by the Welsh Government formerly in 2012, setting out how exclusion should be used and to do so permanently should be, as has been stated today, a final step in the disciplinary process? So, Minister, how can Welsh Government monitor consistency of understanding of this philosophy throughout Wales so that wherever a child lives they experience the same determination for minimising exclusions, irrespective of the location and educational needs?

Well, what the Member is absolutely right to say is that we have seen a drop in the number of permanent exclusions and that's to be welcomed and represents hard work that is going on in schools. The Member asked for an example about what we can do to ensure a national approach to this issue. You'll be aware that we have supported, as a Government, the creation of the adverse childhood experiences support hub for Wales, which has developed a programme for ACE awareness training for all schools. The programme is currently being rolled out across Wales, so again staff have a better understanding of maybe some of the issues that lead to a child behaving in a way that might be deemed unacceptable. By March 2020, all schools in Wales will have been able to access that training.