Official figures show the number of suspensions and exclusions is increasing year-on-year, not least due to persistent disruptive behaviour.
Related factors seem to include unmet mental health and SEN needs, poverty, safeguarding issues, trauma, criminal exploitation, social media, and more.
In this episode, we chat to a secondary school headteacher and a virtual headteacher to find out what they are seeing on the ground.
We ask what preventative actions schools can take to keep students in school and what the signs are that we need to be alert to that a student is on a suspension/exclusion trajectory.
We discuss a graduated response to supporting students and the role of the school environment and climate for learning, including how routines and expectations can help and “teaching” behaviour.
We also touch upon potential interventions for students at risk, including pastoral support plans, unmet needs, a change of curriculum, family support workers and more.
We also ask how we can support students who have been suspended to help them reintegrate into school life successfully, including running reintegration meetings
This host of this webinar is Pete Henshaw, who is the editor of SecEd and has been an education journalist for more than 20 years. His guests are:
- Paul Haigh is headteacher of King Ecgbert School in Sheffield.
- Darren Martindale is virtual school head at City of Wolverhampton Council.
To hear other SecEd podcasts, or to subscribe for free to new editions, search for 'The SecEd Podcast' in your podcast streaming application of choice. Or visit www.sec-ed.co.uk/podcasts
For details about The SecEd Podcast, or to suggest future topics, email editor Pete Henshaw at editor@sec-ed.co.uk