Pupil Exclusions

Department for Education written question – answered at on 25 July 2018.

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Photo of Lord Ouseley Lord Ouseley Crossbench

To ask Her Majesty's Government what action they are taking to prevent children being groomed for criminal gang activities when they have been excluded from school and left unsupervised.

Photo of Lord Agnew of Oulton Lord Agnew of Oulton The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education

The government supports schools in using exclusion where it is warranted, underpinned by statutory guidance issued by the department. Following an exclusion, pupils are not unsupervised. There are clear duties in place to ensure that full time education must be put in place for any pupil from the fifth day of an exclusion.

In the first five school days of an exclusion (or until the start date of any alternative provision or the end of the exclusion where this is earlier), the attached statutory guidance requires a head teacher to notify the pupil’s parents of the days on which they must ensure that the pupil is not present in a public place at any time during school hours. Any parent who fails to comply with this duty without reasonable justification commits an offence and may be given a fixed penalty notice or be prosecuted. The head teacher must notify the parents of the days on which their duty applies without delay and, at the latest, by the end of the afternoon session.

On the 9 April, The Home Office (HO) published the Serious Violence Strategy. This sets out the government response to tackling county lines and establishes a new balance between prevention and rigorous law enforcement activity.

The strategy set out the government’s response to serious violence and outlines an ambitious programme involving 61 commitments and actions including a new £11 million Early Intervention Youth Fund to support communities for early intervention and prevention with young people for financial years 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 and a new National County Lines Co-ordination Centre to tackle violent and exploitative criminal activity associated with county lines.

The attached HO guide for frontline practitioners on child criminal exploitation was launched in July 2017 and supports this work. The HO are also undertaking nationwide awareness-raising communication activity about the threat of county lines targeted to young and vulnerable people and how to avoid becoming involved and exploited by gangs.

HL9562_Exclusions_guidance (PDF Document, 339.99 KB)
HL9562_Serious_Violence_Strategy (PDF Document, 1.01 MB)
HL9562_HO_Child_exploitation_guidance (PDF Document, 194.12 KB)

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