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Education and Skills Bill

moved Amendment No. 228AA: 228AA: Clause 138, page 90, line 31, after ““pupil”” insert ““temporarily”” The noble Baroness said: I shall speak also to Amendment No. 228B. Clause 138 allows school governing bodies to make alternative provision for pupils at another place for the purpose of improving their behaviour. We are concerned that this power might be used disproportionately to get rid of young people whose special needs have not been met and where this has adversely affected their behaviour. That is why we have tabled Amendment No. 228B, which seeks to remove the word ““improve”” on page 90, line 33, and insert, "““provide help, support and guidance aimed at improving””," their behaviour. Amendment No. 228AA seeks to insert the word ““temporarily”” in line 31 to ensure that the powers do not amount to a power permanently to exclude a pupil. We have no objection to a child’s needs being met elsewhere for a while if that ““elsewhere”” can do the job better than the school is doing. We want to avoid PRUs becoming a dumping ground for inconvenient students. We all know that currently a very high proportion of students in PRUs have special needs and that some teachers in some PRUs have tremendous skill in gaining the pupils’ confidence and helping them to taste a little success, something with which many of them are not at all familiar. Some do a very good job but provision is patchy, hence our emphasis on help, support and guidance. We want this to indicate the need for proper provision for addressing the child’s special need. With expert and sensitive help, many of these children can be helped back into mainstream, which is what we should all be aiming for. I beg to move.