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Welcome to
Spring Meadow
Primary School
Aim High, Inspire, Make a Difference
1. Aims
Our school aims to ensure that:
2. Legislation and statutory guidance
This policy is based on statutory guidance from the Department for Education: Exclusion from maintained schools, academies and pupil referral units (PRUs) in England.
It is based on the following legislation, which outline schools’ powers to exclude pupils:
In addition, the policy is based on:
3. The decision to exclude
Only the headteacher, or acting headteacher, can exclude a pupil from school. A permanent exclusion will be taken only as a last resort.
A decision to exclude a pupil will be taken only:
Before deciding whether to exclude a pupil, either permanently or for a fixed period, the headteacher will:
4. Definition
For the purposes of exclusions, school day is defined as any day on which there is a school session. Therefore, INSET or staff training days do not count as a school day.
5. Roles and responsibilities
5.1 The Headteacher
Informing parents
The headteacher will immediately provide the following information, in writing, to the parents of an excluded pupil:
The headteacher will also notify parents by the end of the afternoon session on the day their child is excluded that for the first 5 school days of an exclusion, or until the start date of any alternative provision where this is earlier, parents are legally required to ensure that their child is not present in a public place during school hours without a good reason. Parents may be given a fixed penalty notice or prosecuted if they fail to do this.
If alternative provision is being arranged, the following information will be included when notifying parents of an exclusion:
Where this information on alternative provision is not reasonably ascertainable by the end of the afternoon session, it may be provided in a subsequent notice, but it will be provided no later than 48 hours before the provision is due to start. The only exception to this is where alternative provision is to be provided before the sixth day of an exclusion, in which case the information can be provided with less than 48 hours’ notice with parents’ consent.
Informing the governing body and local authority
The headteacher will immediately notify the governing board and the local authority (LA) of:
For a permanent exclusion, if the pupil lives outside the LA in which the school is located, the headteacher will also immediately inform the pupil’s ‘home authority’ of the exclusion and the reason(s) for it without delay.
For all other exclusions, the headteacher will notify the governing board and LA once a term.
5.2 The Governing Body
5.3 The LA
For permanent exclusions, the LA is responsible for arranging suitable full-time education to begin no later than the sixth day of the exclusion.
6. Considering the reinstatement of a pupil
The Pupil and Staff Discipline Committee will consider the reinstatement of an excluded pupil within 15 school days of receiving the notice of the exclusion if:
If requested to do so by parents, the Pupil and Staff Discipline Committee will consider the reinstatement of an excluded pupil within 50 school days of receiving notice of the exclusion if the pupil would be excluded from school for more than 5 school days, but less than 15, in a single term.
Where an exclusion would result in a pupil missing a public examination, the Pupil Discipline Committee will consider the reinstatement of the pupil before the date of the examination. If this is not practicable, the chair of the governing board (or the vice-chair where the chair is unable to make this consideration) will consider the exclusion independently and decide whether or not to reinstate the pupil.
The Pupil and Staff Discipline Committee can either:
In reaching a decision, the Pupil Discipline Committee will consider whether the exclusion was lawful, reasonable and procedurally fair and whether the headteacher followed their legal duties. They will decide whether or not a fact is true ‘on the balance of probabilities’, which differs from the criminal standard of ‘beyond reasonable doubt’, as well as any evidence that was presented in relation to the decision to exclude.
Minutes will be taken of the meeting, and a record of evidence considered kept. The outcome will also be recorded on the pupil’s educational record.
The Pupil Discipline Committee will notify, in writing, the headteacher, parents and the LA of its decision, along with reasons for its decision, without delay.
Where an exclusion is permanent, the Pupil and Staff Discipline Committee’s decision will also include the following:
7. An independent review
If parents apply for an independent review, the LA will arrange for an independent panel to review the decision of the governing board not to reinstate a permanently excluded pupil.
Applications for an independent review must be made within 15 school days of notice being given to the parents by the Pupil Discipline Committee of its decision to not reinstate a pupil.
A panel of 3 or 5 members will be constituted with representatives from each of the categories below. Where a 5-member panel is constituted, 2 members will come from the school governors’ category and 2 members will come from the headteacher category.
A person may not serve as a member of a review panel if they:
A clerk will be appointed to the panel.
The independent panel will decide one of the following:
The panel’s decision can be decided by a majority vote. In the case of a tied decision, the chair has the casting vote.
8. School registers
A pupil's name will be removed from the school admissions register if:
Where an application for an independent review has been made, the governing body will wait until that review has concluded before removing a pupil’s name from the register.
Where alternative provision has been made for an excluded pupil and they attend it, code B (education off-site) or code D (dual registration) will be used on the attendance register.
Where excluded pupils are not attending alternative provision, code E (absent) will be used.
9. Returning from a fixed-term exclusion
Following a fixed-term exclusion, a re-integration meeting will be held involving the pupil, parents, a member of senior staff and other staff, where appropriate.
The following measures may be implemented when a pupil returns from a fixed-term exclusion:
10. Monitoring arrangements
The Governor with responsibility for Safeguarding monitors the number of exclusions every term and reports back to the Governing Body. They also liaise with the local authority to ensure suitable full-time education for excluded pupils.
This policy will be reviewed by Headteacher annually. At every review, the policy will be shared with the governing body.
11. Links with other policies
This exclusions policy is linked to our
Reviewed: Summer 2021
Next Review: Autumn 2022