Inspiration SEND Network Book Blog #10

Using an Inclusive Approach to Reduce School Exclusion
Tristan Middleton and Lynda Kay

I chose the book as I have recently taken on a Head of Year role in a secondary school. I noticed that the highest proportion of students facing an internal exclusion for misconduct were students with SEN. This is also something the book cites: children with SEN are 7x more likely to be permanently excluded than children with no SEN (DFE, 2017). I wanted to find a way to reduce this in my school by utilising more inclusive tools and strategies in my practice. 

Upon reading the book, I quickly realised that ‘inclusion’ is much more than any standalone strategy, it is an approach that must be adopted by the whole school. 

Informal and Internal Exclusion
I noticed that children with SEN were experiencing higher rates of internal exclusion for breaking the behaviour policy and for some students, this became a vicious and repetitive cycle. Clearly, internal exclusion, as a consequence for breaking the behaviour policy, was not working.

The first thing I reflected on with help from this book was that punishment in the form of an exclusion is not the best way to secure long-term change in behaviour as it does not teach the young person to learn the social and emotional skills to regulate their own behaviour. Indeed, in my context, internal exclusion was definitely not having the desired impact: children would often repeat behaviours such as shouting out, making noises, play fighting, name calling even after multiple internal exclusions. It became clear that a sustainable and effective strategy for reducing exclusions for children with SEN would have to be focused on teaching social, emotional and pro-social behaviours in a supportive context. 

Impact of Exclusion
The book also allowed me to reflect on the impact of exclusion. Firstly, children with SEN experiencing higher levels of exclusion would be facing a huge learning disadvantage as they would be spending less time in the classroom accessing the curriculum with the support of expert teachers. Whilst children who were internally excluded were set work to complete, the book stated that the setting of the work is often a ‘’tokenistic’’ task for teachers with little reflection given on what is needed to ensure continuity for the child’s learning (Kane, 2011). This then leads to children coming back into the classroom facing a larger learning disadvantage than they initially faced, which can have a negative impact on their self-esteem, resulting in disengaged behaviour, stunted progress and potentially another internal exclusion. Overall, I have been able to reflect on the nature of our internal exclusion; what conditions and attitudes need to be adopted by all stakeholders to ensure that internal exclusion or any form of ‘punishment’ does not exacerbate learning needs.

Definitions of Inclusion
Whilst reading the book, it occurred to me that changing one thing about the school environment would not work nor lead to sustainable long-term impact. The change would have to come from reshaping inclusive practice and what it means to be inclusive. As the book states, being inclusive is about ‘’finding better ways to respond to diversity and learning to learn from difference’’ (Ainscow, 2005, p.119, as cited in Middleton & Kay, 2020). The cohort that I look after is definitely different to any at our school currently: it has the highest proportion of children with SEN and these children have also experienced two COVID-19 lockdowns during Year 5 and Year 6 of primary school. We are likely seeing the effects of this in their behaviour patterns, thus the quote above was particularly resonant with me as it is clear that we cannot continue to enforce a method of punishment and behaviour strategy with an entirely new cohort with incredibly different and complex needs. 

I also appreciated the authors’ recognition that challenging existing systems and structures in a school can be difficult and that this can prevent a practitioner from making changes. However, in order to make it possible, the practitioner must not make changes alone and instead consider their support networks. It is with this in mind that I have constantly liaised with our SENDCO, the key workers of children with SEN and our senior leader for behaviour to drive improvements for children with SEN in order to reduce inclusion. Upon truly reflecting upon and understanding the sheer importance of these networks, I will continue to utilise and rely on these relationships in the future years as a Head of Year. 

Approaches for Inclusive Practice 
Upon reading the book, the main approach to be implemented in my context is teaching children about their own emotions, how to manage them and providing them with proactive, preventative strategies to improve their behaviour in order to reduce exclusion.

Part III of the book which centred on approaches for inclusive practice was very useful to practically decide upon which strategies we could work towards implementing in our school or refine where they were already present.

Nurture Groups, Social, Emotional Communication & Effective Partnerships
My school already provided academic nurture groups, whereby children were withdrawn from tutor time to focus on phonics or maths in order to help them access the mainstream curriculum.  During Autumn Term 2, the need for a small group session focusing on emotional regulation was apparent. The book reaffirmed this by stating that nurture groups should focus on ’’emotional curriculum, based on attachment theory’’. I have since begun working with a small group of pupils on friendships and pro-social behaviour. 

The book also comments on the importance of effective inclusive partnerships with parents and other stakeholders. I soon realised the need to make use of these in order to make nurture groups more effective as students would often arrive late at school, missing the nurture session. Keeping parents up to date with the content of the nurture sessions and the importance of the sessions specifically for their child will probably help this group thrive and fulfil its purpose. 

Furthermore, upon reading about the benefits of effective parental communication, I realised there was an excellent opportunity to liaise with the SENDCO to organise some practical workshops centered around emotional regulation to further work together and empower all parties to support the child in the best way.

Furthermore, the book helped me reflect on the notion that when thinking about inclusive practice, it not only concerns children with SEN but also forces us to consider the best environment and approaches for all pupils. Focusing on equipping the entire year group with emotional regulation skills is something I have started to think about; choosing to focus my first pastoral assembly on these skills as well as including bespoke wellbeing activities in tutor time, which ought to reduce exclusions for all pupils as it allows for better communication, understanding and empathy between pupils.

Restorative Justice
Due to the emotional needs of pupils in the year group, the need for restorative justice was apparent. I have worked with our senior behaviour leader to ensure that restorative justice is used for pupils after having negative interactions with staff due to poor behaviour as well as after any peer fallouts. It has helped to build empathy, de-escalate and prevent future miscommunication and misconduct between all parties. It initially requires quite a lot of organisation to gather all parties when schedules allow, however it has been crucial for pupils with SEN to be able to have their perspective heard, especially after being removed from a lesson. It quite often arises that their ‘bad’ behaviour has actually been a way of communicating something that they were unable to express in a better way - thus it has empowered both pupil and teacher to reach a shared understanding of difficulties and ways to move forward. In terms of next steps, I would like to maximise the impact of restorative justice by organising a CPD and equipping all teachers across the school with the knowledge of the processes and purpose involved in restorative justice.

Whilst reading the book, I was thrilled to learn about the theoretical framework for an inclusive approach which includes: Learning and Difference, Social Justice and Human Rights, Empowerment, Creativity, Humanism, Praxis.

Learning & Praxis
As previously mentioned, learning is something the adults must do to pave the way for the children to do the same. Learning is continuous and is the essence of why I chose this book.

Praxis allows us to do something meaningful with our learning, it is learning through theory to improve outcomes. Over the years, I have realised that with busy schedules, teachers do not often have time to research and apply theoretical concepts. It is something that I was able to do whilst training with Teach First, something I recognise the importance of and something I miss greatly. I appreciate this book and I am grateful to the authors for putting the existing literature on inclusive practice into one accessible place, allowing me to improve the educational journey of the pupils I work with.