Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. A large body of research evidence shows that phonics is the most effective way of teaching literacy to all children. Last year’s phonics check identified 235,000 children who will now receive extra help, which is very important because PIRLS—the progress in international reading literacy study—showed that this country has one of the largest gaps between the strongest and weakest performers in reading. It is really important that we identify children who are struggling with reading early, so that they can receive help as soon as possible.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

6. What steps he is taking to ensure that no children with disabilities or additional needs are illegally excluded from school.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

We have issued new statutory guidance setting out schools’ responsibilities on exclusion, making it clear that discrimination against disabled pupils is unlawful and emphasising the importance of stepping in early to address the underlying causes of disruptive behaviour. Early identification and intervention also underpin the Government’s planned reforms to the special educational needs system and a new approach to exclusion that the Government are trialling in a number of local authority areas.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thank the Minister for that response, and he will be aware of Contact a Family’s survey of more than 400 families of children with disabilities and additional needs. It found that 22% of these children are illegally excluded at least once a week and 15% are illegally excluded every day for part of the day, with the most common reasons given being that there were not enough support staff to help or that the child had what the teacher described as “a bad day”. There are no sanctions against schools that carry out these exclusions and Ofsted does not take them into account in its reports, so what can be done to ensure that schools abide by the guidelines?

[Mr Timpson]

I am aware of the Contact a Family report, which was completely right to emphasise that schools should act lawfully and follow the correct procedures. Ofsted has an important role to play in this regard and, with the new criteria on behaviour and leadership, it will look carefully at where illegal exclusions are taking place, will take them seriously and will take them into account when making its overall judgment on a school’s performance. Our trials in 11 local authorities will give a greater incentive for schools to think carefully about what happens after they exclude a pupil and they will have to take greater responsibility.