Written question asked by Gordon Marsden (Labour) on Thursday, 9 July 2009, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 13 July 2009. It was answered by Lord Coaker (Labour) on Thursday, 16 July 2009 on behalf of the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

Special Educational Needs: Pupil Exclusions

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families when he expects to publish the findings of his research into local authority practice on exclusions for children with special educational needs.

Answer: The Department is working with the National Strategies and local authorities to identify good practice among authorities with low rates of exclusion of children with SEN.With National Strategies, the Department has conducted a series of visits to local authorities designed to identify the factors behind why some authorities are able to maintain low rates of SEN exclusions, while others have higher rates.National Strategies will publish the outcomes of these visits in autumn 2009.The Department has asked the National Strategies to support and challenge the highest excluding authorities (including authorities where SEN exclusions are disproportionately high) to reduce the need for exclusion, and to spread good practice from the lower excluding authorities from summer term 2009. The findings from the visits will inform this work.Findings from the visits will also feedback in Ofsted SEN survey 2009-10 that will focus on the Every Child Matters outcomes achieved by children with special educational needs and disabled children.

Secondary information