Strategic Board deepens its impact around Bexley exclusions
At the Strategic Board meeting of 25th June 2019, members agreed actions for each sub-group with the shared goal of making Bexley a borough where schools feel they have no need to exclude. They worked to deepen and accelerate the impact of the Strategic Education Partnership’s work by focusing on one issue – Bexley exclusions – addressing it from several different angles.
Actions agreed included finding ways to promote the Family Wellbeing Service, exploring ways to train staff to identify risk and support children through transitions, monitoring the effectiveness of Fair Access Panel, and developing a mechanism for informing the local authority inclusion team of any fixed term exclusions.
The Timpson Review of School Exclusions and the new Ofsted School Inspection handbook were used to inform their discussion, as was key data around exclusions including: the numbers to date; the reasons given; the school term in which it occurred; the numbers by ethnic group, year group, recorded SEN and whether the child had been known to other agencies. In addition, members heard about the work of the Inclusion sub-group including their visits to other boroughs and New Horizons, their discussion of moving to being proactive earlier in the journey of a child at risk of exclusion and their analysis of a survey of Bexley head teachers.
