Further written evidence to be reported to the House
Education and Skills Bill
10:30 am
Ian Pryce: The college environment is a good one for disaffected pupils from school—e have proved that. The majority of our students do not have five good GCSEs, and when they come to us it is a fresh start. It is very much moulded around a culture of the workplace rather than the school, and deliberately so. Of the 3,500 16 to 18-year-olds we have, we discipline about 150, and last year we excluded two. We are expecting about another 300 to 600 students as a result of the changes, but we think that we can cope with that. The more practical issues are actually about buildings and accommodation rather than the behaviour.