2018, a year which a lot of people lived in fear, especially London; this is the year that knife crime escalated. There are a few reasons why knife crime has risen, one of which has come from comments made by the former Met Police Chief Lord Hogan-Howe, stating that rises in knife crime has been contributed by high levels of school’s exclusions. A report has been created with correlations between school exclusions and gang membership, as well as suggesting that pupils have been ‘tossed aside’ to pupil-referral units (PRUs).
What the government do not understand is that teachers do not want to exclude pupils, at Rikama Education we care about staff and schools, but above all we care about the students. Being an ex-teacher, if a child is excluded you feel as though you have failed that child as you are responsible for the well-being of that child whilst in your classroom however there is little actual evidence that because students be involved in crime, especially knife crime, when exclusions occur. Some experts suggest that if a child is excluded from mainstream education, this is simply a ‘red flag’ to educators that this person is vulnerable.
If a child or young person is vulnerable in any situation, they need, and rightly deserve, help. Unfortunately, this then comes down to funding. If a student has a teaching assistant through funding support, will they be still be excluded? We will not know; however, I can guarantee that it will lower the odds to that person not achieving.
What the government does not understand is that teachers are responsible for, sometimes, 30 plus children at any one time. As well as ensuring they are meeting the ‘government norms’ in terms of statistics and grades, teachers need to ensure that children behave and are respectful and unfortunately this is not always possible due to a variety of reasons. To us at Rikama, the easiest and most simplest way of reducing ‘risk to exclusion’ within mainstream schools is to ensure that vulnerable students have a teaching assistant or additional support access, if funding is available.
