‘They have just given up on me’ How pupils labelled with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD) experience the process of exclusion from school

Abstract

For decades, the school exclusion rates have been a cause for concern within the English education system. We have witnessed a steady increase in the numbers of pupils being excluded since 2012. Evidence suggests that some children are more likely to be excluded from school, a significant number will have had the social, emotional and behavioural difficulties label attached to them. This article will draw on the work of Parsons and Howlett (Permanent exclusions from school: A case where society is failing its children. Support for Learning, 11, 3, 109-112, 1996) to see how much, if any, progress has been made since the publication of their work which raised concerns regarding the exclusion processes employed in England. Drawing on the perspectives of pupils, parents and teachers, 13 in-depth case studies were developed, with emphasis placed on employing innovative and creative methods to hear the voices of young people. The findings revealed that young people, their parents and teachers feel the current education system continues to fail this group of young people. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Out‐of‐school suspension among young persons in care: The need to respond to attachment needs and provide a secure base that promotes learning

“…In contrast to common premises underlying the zero tolerance and school safety discourse, the interviews clearly demonstrate that an explanation that focuses only on the pathology of the child is unsatisfactory and that a young persons' problematic behaviour, eventually leading to their suspension does not occur in a vacuum (Caslin, 2021). To better understand young persons' behaviour and to deal with it effectively, the circumstances that led to its development and the context in which it occurs must be considered (Roseby & Gascoigne, 2021).…”

“…This is in keeping with the ‘zero tolerance’ or ‘school safety’ disciplinary policy that has dominated the discourse in England and in the US in the past two decades (Bennett, 2017; Parsons, 2018; Skiba & Losen, 2016). This perspective situates the problem within the child, so that a personal pathology that is reflected, for example, in a lack of respect for rules or lack of motivation for learning, leads the child to deliberately engage in problematic behaviours (Caslin, 2021). However, as a deterrent to misbehaviour, the effectiveness of school exclusion has come into question through studies showing that once students are suspended they have an increased likelihood of future antisocial behaviour and suspensions (Melkman, 2022).…”

Disciplinary exclusion: wicked problems in wicked settings

“…To take an example, if child A is unable to conform to the behavioural norms of school A, for whatever reason, this may well result in demands for solutions from many stakeholders. It is entirely feasible that school A will formulate the problem as within‐child, set them on a path to diagnosis of some sort and, ultimately, move them onto specialist provision; such practices are well documented (Caslin, 2021; Malmqvist, 2018; Marshall and Goodall, 2015).…”

A question of feedback? Studying effects of academic performance and teacher feedback on primary school students' social acceptance in an experimental setting

“…However, over the course of the last decade, a growing body of research has suggested that children with special educational needs (SEN) in inclusive classrooms are less accepted by their peers than children without SEN (Koster et al, 2009;Pijl and Frostad, 2010;Krull et al, 2014;Schürer, 2020). The stigmatizing effect of the SEN label is often discussed in this context (Caslin, 2021;Demetriou, 2022). However, comparing primary school children with and without a SEN diagnosis using propensity score matching, Henke et al (2017) found no differences in social rejection when controlling for other relevant characteristics (i.e., academic performance and cognitive and social skills).…”