Private schools inclusion units

[nicholab]

General question why don’t private schools seem to have very good provision of exclusion units?

 

The schools I worked in had no internal exclusion unit?

 

All normal schools did.

[thimon]

Is this in terms of a department / staff dedicated to supporting excluded students?

[E_G_R2]

Not sure what you mean by exclusion? When i worked in the state sector in a inner city school we had excellent provision for those pupils who were excluded from the mainstream but included in the school due to their behaviour.

 

In the private (fee paying) school that I work in now you don't find the behaviour of the other school so do not need the same facilities.

 

Now if you mean provision for special needs then in my current school we have 4 dedicated teachers (not TA's) who do one to one lessons for the pupils with learning difficulties.

[nicholab]

They don't seem to have a department and a space.

[Katy]

We don't tend to have any kids that are persistently behaving in a way that would require an exclusion unit. Learning Support department supports the weaker pupils or those which, without support, may become challenging.

[thimon]

I work in a private school, and as other users have stated above we don't have behaviour instances like state schools do. It sounds like a generic broad sweeping statement but I find it's true. I worked in a state school before this and was very surprised at how well behaved the students are here. If there are any instances it's dealt with by the head of keystage or relevant pastoral / safeguarding lead member of staff.

[dhicks]

General question why don’t private schools seem to have very good provision of exclusion units?

 

The general advantage of private schools is the greater staff-to-pupil ratio than state schools. You can afford to have smaller classroom sizes and more staff such as teaching assistants, so any difficult behaviour can, hopefully, be dealt with in the classroom. I work in a private school, and we have both a learning support department and an on-site child counselling service, which between them should be able to get most children back on track in short order. Parents can, of course, choose the private school that is going to be the best fit for their child, and there are private schools that specialise in pupils with specific educational needs, which generally have very small class sizes and speacialist staff.

[Andrew_C]

Depends - if a pupil needs (and accepts) academic support, it is available for them. If they fail to adhere to disciplinary rules, after a few steps/strikes, they get chucked out.

[stevejp]

Behaviour issues are there in independent - they’re just different. Ours is non-selective, so we do tend to get a smattering of “I’ve got the money, so please turn this sows ear (who we ‘forgot’ to tell you has been kicked out of his last two schools) into a silk purse.” However, the other kids tend not to join in the poor behaviour with such gusto as they do in the state sector and the small classes and lower staff : pupil ratio means that poor behaviour tends to be jumped on much quicker. Also, it is much easier for parents to be asked to remove a child (so that expulsion doesn’t go on their record) if they refuse to conform.

Not only that, but the other parents tend to get pretty vocal if someone is stopping little Tarquin achieving his full potential because they can’t behave!

[elsiegee40]

Having worked in both state and independent sectors the behaviour issues are very different. I can honestly say that there were very few children with poor behaviour, or even SEN beyond dyslexia, in the independent.

 

The school wasn’t selective, but made it clear from the outset that the school didn’t have the staff or facilities to cope with behavioural problems. The children simply didn’t come.

 

In ten years, I can only remember one child whose behaviour went beyond the norm. He left. Other fee paying parents are not tolerant and have high expectations. My suspicion is that the child was basically permanently excluded... there was wording in the parent contract that allowed it. Unlike the state sector, there is no appeal unless the parents try to take the school to court.