Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Education – in the Senedd at 2:10 pm on 5 June 2019.
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.