TreeHouse report reveals children with autism are being bullied then excluded as a way of dealing with the issue

Anti-Bullying Week 17-21 November 2008

A recent report published by TreeHouse, the national charity for autism education, revealed that children with autism have been bullied and then excluded from school as a way of managing bullying in schools.

Sasha Daly, Policy and Parliamentary Manager at TreeHouse, said: “The exclusion of children with autism because they are being bullied often falls into the category of the illegal exclusions that parents report to TreeHouse. An illegal exclusion means that a child is removed from school without any formal procedure being followed. 55% of parents in our research reported that their child had been illegally excluded, in many cases as a way of dealing with bullying. This is a serious problem and something that TreeHouse is working hard to change.”

One parent reported that her child was severely bullied and teachers at his school kept him in at lunch times as a way of dealing with the problem. She said: “My son is now 12. He has autism and was just 8 when the bullying started. He suffered physical abuse on a number of occasions, had his face dragged along a brick wall and came home with a split lip, cuts and bruises on countless occasions. He had such low self esteem that by the time he was 9 he had started to self harm and was put on anti-depressants. His school just didn’t seem to have the time or the recourses to deal with the problem effectively and so kept him in at lunch and break times. This completely isolated him from other children and for a child with autism, isolation is already something they are dealing with. In the end my son hit back at the bullies and he was permanently excluded. If the problem had been dealt with and if the teachers at his school had had the appropriate training in how to deal with the problem, this would not have happened.”

John Bercow MP, who carried out an extensive report into speech, language and communication needs earlier this year, recently asked a series of questions in Parliament on behalf of TreeHouse on the issue of exclusions. The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) published clear guidance in May 2008 which provides advice on how to successfully tackle bullying. Despite this guidance making clear that pupils must not be excluded for being bullied, this exceptionally unfair and discriminatory practice is happening all over the country.

Whilst TreeHouse welcomes the Governments launch of a film for school pupils to help clampdown on the bullying of children with Special Educational Needs (SEN), we believe that more can be done.

TreeHouse is calling for teachers and all those in the children’s workforce to be given specialist training in autism so that they can better understand the needs of children with autism. Currently only a fifth of teachers have had any autism specific training at all and nearly a third of children with autism have been excluded from school, the vast majority more than once.

TreeHouse would also like Ofsted to review bullying policies in schools, and for better data on exclusions and the reasons why they have been issued in order to eradicate this problem from our schools.

The TreeHouse report which revealed these findings is called Improving Inclusion: Getting inclusive education right for children with autism and can be found at www.treehouse.org.uk