§ 4. Mr. Jonathan Shaw (Chatham and Aylesford)What support has been made available to schools to help them reduce the number of pupils who are excluded. [88967]
§ The Minister for School Standards (Ms Estelle Morris)In 1999–2000, £57.4 million has been made available through the standards fund to help local education authorities and schools reduce levels of truancy and exclusion and move towards a full timetable for those out of school. Overall, £500 million will be made available over three years. Other measures to tackle truancy and exclusion include requiring authorities to set targets to reduce truancy and exclusion levels by one third by 2002, and, earlier this week, issuing new integrated guidance, "Social Inclusion; Pupil Support".
§ Mr. ShawI thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Is she aware of the organisation Place to Be, which provides specialist counselling and therapy-based services in schools in areas such as Medway to assist children and their families when they are in periods of difficulty? That counselling is an enormous help to those families, and perhaps prevents them from going on to use other health services and waiting a long time. Additionally, its proactive approach means that many pupils who might face exclusion, either permanently or temporarily, may avoid doing so. Will she find out more about Place to Be, and try to ensure that thousands of other children benefit from that vital service?
§ Ms MorrisI share with my hon. Friend the determination to take preventive action, so that we may stop youngsters being excluded. As he well knows, the purpose of the Place to Be project is to prevent long-term mental health difficulties in primary-aged children who may be at risk of such difficulties. I was delighted that some of the almost £500,000 that has been provided to Medway, where my hon. Friend's constituency is to be found, is being used to support Place to Be. My hon. Friend may be interested to know that Place to Be is also doing some work in one of the education action zones. We shall evaluate the project, as that is one of the grant conditions. However, after careful evaluation of the project, if it is proved to be effective, we shall of course be delighted to help to support it operating elsewhere.
§ Mr. Nick St. Aubyn (Guildford)Yesterday, the Education and Employment Committee published the Government's response to our report on highly able children, some of whom may also be at risk of exclusion if the maintained sector cannot meet their very particular needs. A nine-year-old girl in my constituency has not found in the maintained sector the education that she needs, and, this autumn, will be going to a local independent school. Will the Minister explain to the House why that girl and her family have to rely solely on charitable support to achieve the education that she needs, and why the Government will deny power to the local education authority to fund that provision?
§ Ms MorrisThe Government welcome the Select Committee report on the education of highly able children. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Government have launched a policy—the most wide-ranging such 1162 policy ever developed in the lifetime of the English education service—to support highly able children throughout the school system. His constituents will always have the choice of whether to access the independent sector to educate their children.
The challenge, which the Government are meeting, is to ensure that the maintained sector values and provides a high standard of education to every single child, so that they are able to fulfil their potential. Our action—in providing extra resources and support, setting clear targets, modernising the comprehensive system, and ensuring diversity in primary and secondary education—is exactly the way to reach that goal, so that, in future, parents will not be faced with the very difficult dilemmas to which the hon. Gentleman has referred.
§ Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours (Workington)My hon. Friend will be aware of the unfortunate circumstances surrounding the exclusion—from the Nelson Thomlinson school, in Cumbria—of a child from my constituency. In the light of that case—which I think has national significance—why cannot we now have a complete review of the whole policy? There was an injustice in that case, and we must find some way of ensuring that similar injustices do not occur in future.
§ Ms MorrisI recall the case to which my hon. Friend refers. We have had lengthy correspondence on it and I very much hope that it has been resolved. We have a good system for dealing with exclusions and disputes between parents and schools. It is inevitable that the relationships between parents and schools will occasionally break down. Sometimes the victims are the children, whose education is disrupted. I hope that in the case to which my hon. Friend referred those concerned took every possible course of action to bring about a speedy resolution—but I entirely take his point. If the system needs changing to avoid children being out of school for a long period, we shall be happy to learn from that example and review the situation when we review our policy.
§ Mrs. Theresa May (Maidenhead)We all want to ensure that all children are valued and are given access to education so that they can take advantage of the opportunities that it offers them. Does the Minister accept that many teachers are very concerned about the impact that the Government's insistence on targets for reducing exclusion could have in the classroom? Many feel that to reach the targets pupils will be kept in the classroom against the better judgment of the school and against their own interests and those of others in the school—or will the Government fiddle the figures to reach their target, as we have already seen may be happening on the literacy and numeracy targets?
In "Excellence in Cities", the Government have proposed that pupil referral units be set up in schools so that pupils can be excluded within the school rather than from the school. Will the Minister confirm that future figures on exclusions will include the number of pupils excluded from the classroom? That would give a true picture of exclusions and not allow the Government to attempt to reach their target merely by fiddling the figures.
§ Ms MorrisI am left wondering whether the hon. Lady knows what exclusion means. Under the Conservative 1163 Government it meant excluding a child from full-time education and often providing them with as little as two hours' education a week. Part of the money that we have made available this year will be used to provide full-time education for the first time for those excluded from school. I hope that all hon. Members share our wish for children not to be excluded from school.
I entirely accept that there are occasions when a child needs to be removed from the classroom because of the effect that their behaviour and attitude is having on other children. Our wish is to keep them in the school and in mainstream education. The figures show that a child sent out of school to a pupil referral unit is very rarely reintegrated into the mainstream system. I had hoped that the hon. Lady would welcome the fact that we are making resources available, under "Excellence in Cities" and other initiatives, to support schools and teachers in their wish to find a speedy way of dealing with children who are having a disruptive effect on the education of others, while keeping them in school and in full-time education, working with them and reintegrating them as quickly as possible.