New Clause 13 - Pupil referral units: supply and publication of information
Education Bill [Lords]
4:45 pm
Mr John Pugh (Education Spokesperson, Education & Skills; Southport, Liberal Democrat)
We are into the à la carte element of the agenda now, and I begin to wish that I had thought of all sorts of cunning little new clauses to detain everybody for a while. Actually, the new clause is very good and has a lot of sense behind it. There is a danger of looking at pupil referral units as sin-bins, where the children are thrown into the outer darkness and left to vegetate. Certainly, when they go to such units, there is often a sense of relief in the school: people are glad to see the back of them because they have been problematic. However, they will go on being problematic unless the PRU does the job and changes their behaviour, their level of attainment, or their general demeanour. That is essential.
If all that happens in the PRU is that a pupil goes on for a few more years in perhaps a more managed environment, but does not fundamentally achieve any more or change in any way, that pupil who has been thrown out of school as a problem will eventually go out into the world as a problem. Society picks up the tab for that. There is a lot of sense in a system in which the buck stops somewhere. If children are going to PRUs, we must rationally assess what good it is doing them, what progress they are making, and try to give the PRU a mission to be accomplished. I do not mean that patronisingly, but if they are subject to the same rigours as established, mainstream institutions, they will recognise that their job is every bit as, if not more important than, what happens in the mainstream.