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School exclusions are not the single cause of crime among young people, but they are one driver. We should reverse coalition gvt reforms that made it easier to exclude, and subject schools to proper scrutiny to make sure exclusion is a last resort.
thetimes.co.uk/edition/commen…
thetimes.co.uk/edition/commen…
I'm not trying to paint heads as heartless, violence-stoking, welfare-ignoring monsters. They're not. (Read the full piece, not just the headline.) But I am saying the current *system* is not well designed, as @ChildrensComm, @CommonsEd and @HumanRightsCtte have all now said.
It's important to note the limits of the evidence for causation from exclusions --> knives. There's qualitative evidence that exclusion drives crime in general here: stgilestrust.org.uk/general-attach…
Ofsted has also been told, incl by PRU heads, that excluded kids "are vulnerable to grooming by gangs and to becoming perpetrators and victims of knife crime". assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…
In addition, junior Home Office minister Victoria Atkins says that HO has noticed exclusion as a "common theme" in cases, and Lord Hogan-Howe cites the same from his experience thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/s…
But, as @tombennett71 has eloquently argued over the past couple of days, the hard numbers suggest that exclusions are not a "major short-term driver of knife possession offences" for kids of 16 or under.
That suggests to me that exclusions are driving crime in general to some extent, and knife crime in particular to some (lesser) extent, yet not to such an extent as to account for a majority of knife crime among young people. But clearly more hard quantitative work needed.
Ultimately, my conclusion in @thetimes is that the exclusions system needs reform. If that helps put the brakes on crime, that is a good thing - but reforming the school exclusion system would be a good thing in and of itself, too.
thetimes.co.uk/edition/commen…
thetimes.co.uk/edition/commen…
