TO STOP the inhumane practice of permanently excluding kids from mainstream publicly funded schools, in H&F council but also in London and eventually in the UK.

TO STOP the marginalisation and rejection of kids from school settings in their primary or secondary schools that will inevitably cause permanent social exclusion for the rest of their lives, not to mention lifelong mental health problems

TO STOP the evil circuit of “alternative provisions” (new name for an old institution: Special Referral Units) TBAP and “Special schools” that, for their very nature, make the kid behaviour worse and exacerbate the marginalisation and the anger of the young person. These schools often act as parking spaces for excluded kids and reintegration to mainstream education is delayed for years or often never takes place

TO STOP the horrible ping-pong practice ("manage moves") of moving difficult kids among schools and Academies in the borough: it does not work, it is still a form of school exclusion and  "absolve" schools from doing more

TO STOP considering a 12-16 yrs kid only in terms of money as schools/Academies often do!

TO STOP considering a 12-16 yrs. as "a problem” for society, for which isolation and marginalisation from other schools kids is the only solution, while the only thing that it will truly work for a better society is REINTEGRATION TO THEIR ORIGINAL SCHOOL!

TO STOP the flow of money that these “alternative” TBAP schools, often private, suck out of public funds, offering not even a third of the National Curriculum, lowering expectations from the "naughty" kids  and affecting their self-esteem for life!

TO STOP the flow of money that finances the wages of all the local authority’s officers that, for many years after the permanent exclusion, are unsuccessfully involved in the future life of the kid, 80% of their work being solely paperwork! Ask the families involved.

TO STOP the preclusion of parents to re-enrol their permanently excluded kid in any other mainstream school or college in the territory! Often kids stay at home with no education for months. Parents hands are tied and the kid  “belong” de facto to the authorities.

TO STOP the distress caused to many families of excluded kids, often coming from local ethnic minorities, often single-parents, often kids of emigrants/refugees, often black kids, often living in precarious poor conditions, often having siblings similarly excluded from education! Families that cannot afford to go private to avoid it all.

SOLUTION?

Stop the practice of permanent exclusion and give instead more money directly to schools in order to provide MORE SPECIALISED AND PERSONALISED IN-SCHOOL SUPPORT for the “naughty impossible” kid!

FOR EXAMPLE: let each mainstream school, by law, have their specialised unit that helps with difficult challenging behaviour, but still within the school premises and still facilitating reintegration of the kid within school life.

We truly believe that in the long-run the Council will save a lot of money and society as a whole will be better off from every point of view.

In summary:

TO STOP the pattern of permanent school-exclusion -->street-night violence --> crime --> PRISON

TO STOP the widespread mentality of social exclusion and punishment of UK kids and replace it with a real and effective INCLUSION in mainstream school settings!

Sources:

UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1959)

Principle 7: “Every child is entitled to receive education [...]. He shall be given an education which will promote his general culture and enable him, on a basis of equal opportunity, to develop his abilities, his individual judgement, and his sense of moral and social responsibility, and to become a useful member of society.”