TreeHouse concerned over exclusions of children under seven with SEN in new Ofsted report

TreeHouse, the national charity for autism education, is deeply concerned that a new Ofsted report has revealed that the vast majority of children under seven who are repeatedly excluded from school are those with special educational needs (SEN).

As autism affects a child’s communication, social understanding and behaviour, children with autism may be amongst those most often excluded because their behaviour is misunderstood as disobedience.

This survey explored the reasons for exclusions and the ways in which some schools manage to avoid using exclusion. The school’s philosophy, a supportive and stable school environment, and strong relationships between the school and parents were found to be important factors in preventing very young children from being excluded.

Sasha Daly, Policy & Parliamentary Manager at TreeHouse, said: “At TreeHouse we hear from parents time and time again how exclusion is used as a way of dealing with children who have autism. One in 100 school age children have autism and 27% of them have been excluded from school, the majority more than once. We believe this unacceptably high number could be drastically reduced if teachers were provided with adequate training so that they are able to support these children to learn and succeed.”

“There is clearly some good practice and, as the report highlights, some schools have adopted successful methods such as involving parents and structuring social time. The problem is that there is no consistency. The support a child with autism or any SEN gets depends on where they go to school and this has to change.”
 

The full report, entitled ‘The exclusion from school of children aged four to seven’, can be found here.