Supporting behaviour and meeting needs to avoid exclusions

This page provides information to support you as a parent or carer with preventing your child from being excluded. You may also find it useful to refer to the 'Creating an inclusive environment to avoid exclusions' page for schools.

Support available for parents and carers

You are key in helping schools to understand your child’s needs and to enable your child to have a successful and inclusive education. Sharing information with your school about your child's needs will help them to provide the right support where needed. Good communication will help if there are any problems that your child is having that is impacting on their education.

Support you can get from schools

Schools have access to many resources that can help to understand your child’s needs and provide an inclusive environment for them to gain access to a successful education.

School behaviour policy and sanctions

All schools are required by law to have a behaviour policy, which will outline how the school expects your child to behave. You should be able to find your school’s behaviour policy on their website or you can contact them.

When the rule or conduct is breached, schools will have a range of sanctions that will help your child to reflect on their actions. The sanctions will be available to view in the behaviour policy.

If there are discrepancies about the level of intervention used, parents should first discuss this with the headteacher. If there continues to be a discrepancy about the level of intervention, parents can ask for a copy of the school’s complaints procedure.

Understand the cause of behaviour to prevent escalation

Schools and parents should always give consideration to the cause of any unwanted behaviour. Whilst sanctions may need to be in place to meet the immediate need, understanding the cause of the behaviour enables interventions to be put in place early to prevent long term escalation that could result in fixed term or permanent exclusions.

Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCPs)

If your child has a statement of Special Educational Needs (SEN), or an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP), you’ll need to contact the local authority’s SENA team to ensure that the EHCP can be implemented fully.

Contact the Special Educational Needs Assessment (SENA) team

The SENA team can be contacted on 0116 305 6600 during office hours or by emailing them at senaservice@leics.gov.uk

Looked after or previously Looked After Children (LACs)

If your child is a looked after, or previously looked after child, then you’ll need to contact the Leicestershire Virtual School

Exclusion as a last resort

Schools in Leicestershire have formed a localised agreement to consider all options prior to administering an exclusion and to use this only as a last resort where serious breaches of behaviour policies have occurred. As such, Leicestershire schools boast one of the lowest exclusion rates in England.

Although this is the case, there may be occasions where exclusions are deemed necessary when there has been a serious breach of the schools/settings behaviour policy.

Can the school legally exclude my child?

It is only the head teacher who can authorise an exclusion and there is strict guidance that is required to be followed by the head teacher, governing body and the local authority when exclusions occur.

For permanent exclusions, a decision to exclude a pupil permanently should only be taken:

• in response to a serious breach or persistent breaches of the school's behaviour policy; and
• where allowing the pupil to remain in school would seriously harm the education or welfare of the pupil or others in the school

Further information can be found on the school exclusion page of the government website.

Challenging an exclusion

The government website provides statutory information about how you can challenge an exclusion

How my child receives an education following a permanent exclusion

The government website provides statutory information about what happens if your child is excluded

Within Leicestershire, this is provided through Oakfield short stay school for primary aged children and the Secondary Education and Inclusion Partnerships (SEIPs) for secondary school aged children.

Access support services if a child is at risk of, or has been excluded

Support from the Inclusion Service

You can contact the Inclusion Service for advice or to make a referral, if you're a parent or carer, school or professional, concerned about a child's or young person's access to/inclusion in high quality education, employment or training.

Support from the Special Educational Needs and Disability Information, Advice and Support Service (SENDIASS)

SENDIASS Leicestershire offers free, impartial and confidential advice and support to parents and carers of young people aged 0-25 with special education needs or disabilities, as well as the young people themselves. They advise on all matters relating to SEND, including education, health and social care issues.

Ace Education

ACE Education provides advice and information for parents and carers on state education for children aged 5 to 16 years, including special educational needs, behaviour and exclusion, admissions and appeals, attendance, discrimination and bullying.

Coram Children’s Legal Centre

The child law advice service, part of Coram Children's Legal Centre, provides advice to parents, carers and young people on all areas of child, family and education law.