NUT POLICY STATEMENT
ON PUPIL REFERRAL UNITS ANDGOVERNMENT PROPOSALS
MARCH 2012
Introduction
1. The NUT welcomes the opportunity to respond to the consultation on the Education (Pupil Referral Units) (Application of Enactments) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2012.
Alternative Provision academies
2. The NUT opposes academy status and disputes the claim in The Importance of Teaching White Paper that allowing PRUs to become academies will “improve quality and accountability in the AP sector”.
3. The NUT believes that academies have a damaging impact on children, teachers and the whole community, for the following reasons:
- Academies hand over state schools to unaccountable sponsors or academy ;
- Many sponsors are unsuitable;
- Academies undermine fair admissions procedures;
- Academies threaten teachers’ pay and working conditions;
- Academies do not offer pupils a better education than other local schools;
- Academies undermine joint approaches between schools to meeting the needs of pupils such as behaviour and attendance partnerships;
- Academies undermine the independent role of school governors; and
- Academies have a damaging impact on other neighbouring schools and on local authorities and on the central services that they provide to schools.
4. Children only have one chance to have a successful school education. The NUT believes that because academies are outside the local authority family of schools their isolation from local authority support and oversight makes them more vulnerable than other schools when problems arise. No one would want a school to fail whatever its status. The NUT believes, therefore, that the Government should:
- return existing academies to maintained status;
- halt the expansion of the academies programme and evaluate urgently the evidence on how schools in very challenging circumstances can be helped to make a difference to pupils’ life chances;
- engage in a dialogue with teachers, parents, governors, local authorities, trade unions and other stakeholders on how such schools can be supported, and how the principle of locally accountable, comprehensive education provision can be enhanced;
- establish a forum to encourage businesses or individuals wanting to make a contribution towards the education of young people to do so but in partnership with schools rather than as a take over; and
- legislate for all state-funded schools to be part of their local authorities’ admissions arrangements and to apply national pay and conditions for staff, including trade union recognition.
5. Findings from the NUT’s survey[1] of qualified teachers working in academies show that the process of establishing an academy can have a negative impact on schools, teachers and pupils often leading to a period of disruption. This would be wholly unsuitable for PRUs.
6. It is in this context that the NUT believes that the programme of Alternative Provision academies should be discontinued immediately. PRUs provide learning, guidance and support to some of the most vulnerable young people. These pupils need access to multi-agency support services on an ongoing basis and coherent, consistent information sharing between professionals. This will not be achieved by removing PRUs from the strategic direction of the local authority.
The record of PRUs
7. Ofsted inspections data reveals that PRUs are very effective schools, although this is not reflected in comments made by Michael Gove and Nick Gibb over the last 12 months. Between 1 September 2010 and 31 August 2011, 65% of PRUs were judged to be ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’, compared with 52% of mainstream secondary schools. The proportion of PRUs believed by Ofsted to be ‘inadequate’ was the same as the proportion of mainstream schools[2]. PRUs are inspected against the same Framework as mainstream schools.
8. PRUs are hugely under-valued. PRU teachers are expert at engaging vulnerable and disaffected children and young people, and those with medical needs, and working to engage their parents and carers. Teachers plan work carefully so that it relates to pupils’ specific needs. PRU teachers and other PRU staff carry out a significant amount of work with families and liaison with other agencies including housing and social services. PRUs are engaged in early intervention activity with pupils at risk and work hard to support pupils with reintegration into mainstream schools. None of this is recognised by the Government.
9. In addition to this, many PRUs share resources and expertise with neighbouring schools and others within the local authority family. Teachers and other specialist staff support pupils and offer coaching and professional development opportunities to teachers in mainstream local schools, in particular around re-integration of pupils. Pupils attending PRUs benefit from projects involving pupils from mainstream schools, particularly when this has enabled them to work with older or much younger pupils. The NUT is concerned that these arrangements, and in particular coaching for mainstream teachers about teaching strategies, will not continue if PRUs become academies.
The privatisation of PRU services
10. The NUT believes that there has been a campaign by the current Government to attack PRUs and to disparage the commitment and achievements of these settings and their staff. This includes Michael Gove expressing the view that "Most local authority-run pupil referral units are not up to snuff”[3].
11. The NUT believes that this disparaging view of PRUs is being disseminated and repeated by the Government in order to justify the privatisation of these essential services and the forced academisation of the PRU sector where it is universally feared.
12. Rather than celebrating PRU successes and the picture of colossal commitment and endeavour they reveal, the Government is focusing on powers to remove them from local authority control. Problems of high staff turnover, leadership discontinuity or insecurities arising from traded services models will not be successfully tackled by converting PRUs to academies. Such a ‘solution’ will undermine the outreach and behaviour support advice capacity of PRUs.
13. The key issue facing PRU provision is not their quality but their lack of an integrated and co-ordinated relationship with mainstream schools. Sponsor involvement and creating more academies will inevitably set up barriers to resolving these problems. Managed moves of pupils, integration plans, co-ordinated professional development for PRU staff, the provision of support and professional development by PRUs to local mainstream schools, the transfer of records and data, and jointly planned provision for excluded pupils will all be hindered by forcing PRUs into academy status.
14. In situations were a PRU is in challenging circumstances, it is unclear how a ‘failing’ PRU could be improved by being forced to become an academy. The NUT concludes that the intention is to wind down PRUs in their current form, rather than to ‘improve’ them. The NUT rejects the premise that ‘increasing autonomy, accountability and diversity’ will ‘drive up standards in alternative provision’. [4]
Inspection of PRUs
15. There are a wide range of issues about making inspection processes appropriate for alternative settings. The inspection process should change to fit the setting rather than the other way round. It is inappropriate for Nick Gibb to suggest, as he did in October 2011, that five or more GSCEs at A* to C is the appropriate benchmark against which to measure students in pupil referral units. The guidance for Ofsted inspectors recognises the importance of measuring progress from pupils’ starting points, but Government ministers fail to appreciate what are reasonable expectations to place on pupil referral unit teachers.
16. In September 2007, Ofsted produced a survey of PRUs. It inspected good and outstanding PRUs at Key Stages 3 and 4, as well as consulting LAs, to identify the factors which contributed to success. Ofsted found that the effectiveness of PRUs is related to the support they receive from their local authority. The NUT agrees with this finding. Ofsted concluded that productive partnerships between PRUs and LAs are characterised by clearly defined roles and responsibilities for local authorities, teachers in charge and management committees, and good quality support from local authorities for leaders of PRUs.
17. Evidence from teachers in PRUs reveals that they do not believe Ofsted inspections are always carried out in ways which are appropriate and fair. The NUT believes that the Government should consider how it will retain and motivate teachers in PRUs once it introduces the dual policies of academy conversion and proposals to delegate funding for excluded pupils to mainstream schools.
Private Sector Provision
18. The NUT is aware that there is currently a range of alternative education providers outside of the statutory sector, including private providers, supporting pupils across the country. Many of these services are valued by teachers and are improving the lives of vulnerable young people. These arrangements have been in place in the context of wider partnership working involving local authorities and health services and child-focussed commissioning practice. Over the last two years, the Government has sought to dissolve many of these systems. The NUT therefore believes that there is a greater need than ever for services for vulnerable young people, such as those that attend PRU provision, to be overseen and delivered by the publicly-accountable statutory sector.
19. The NUT is concerned that, under the AP academy programme, public funding will be made available to providers who were not interested in running alternative provision when funding was not available. These providers will not necessarily have any experience of running educational institutions. They will, however, be able to see the lucrative market that exists where there is a statutory duty on local authorities (or, in the future, schools) to provide full time provision for pupils excluded from school. They will further be able to see that the profit margin on each place can be increased if costs are kept to a minimum. The NUT believes that AP academies may allocate services, support and opportunities to individual pupils on the basis of the cost and not on the basis of the outcomes for the pupil.
20. The NUT is concerned that schools might pay AP academies to admit challenging pupils without having to negotiate with the local authority. This would increasingly happen on the basis of a costs analysis. AP academies may take young people into their setting, regardless of whether it is in the best interests of the young person to be out of mainstream provision, as long as the cost of their place would be met by the excluding or transferring school.
21. In a survey of qualified teachers conducted at an NUT PRU Consultative Conference[5], 76% of respondents said that they did not believe that private sector providers should be allowed to deliver alternative provision. Only 16% of respondents said they thought that private sector providers should be allowed to deliver alternative provision.
22. Overwhelmingly, there were concerns from PRU teachers that private sector alternative provision was unaccountable, and that not enough information was known about whether it matched pupil need and delivered a broad and balanced curriculum entitlement.
23. In the same survey, 92% of respondents said that they thought PRUs should be part of local authority provision. Not one respondent said that they thought PRUs should operate outside the local authority. It will be hugely damaging to impose academy status on PRUs when nine out of ten teachers in these schools oppose academy status.
Admissions
24. The NUT believes that PRUs should determine their admissions policies in co-operation with the local authority and other local schools. Access to PRUs should be determined by the local authority, which balances the needs of the excluded pupil, or at risk pupil, and the capacity of the PRU in question to meet those needs. The best interests of the young person should be paramount.
25. Currently, some pupils with statements of SEN are placed inappropriately in a PRU because of a lack of provision available in the special sector. This reflects the need for the local authority to retain control and responsibility for planning provision to meet the needs of all pupils locally with SEN and additional needs. It is the LA that must plan to retain sufficient places for school phobics, teenage mothers, pupils who need home and hospital tuition, and pupils with behavioural and emotional needs.
26. Schools are under ever-increasing pressure to compete with each other. Mechanisms that were in place to support pupils who are not coping in mainstream school, such as behaviour partnerships, fair access panels and managed moves, have been undermined by the academies programme, cuts to education funding and the attack on the roles of local authorities. In the context of these factors, the NUT believes that it is harder than ever for schools to retain and support pupils who are struggling.
27. The primary role of PRUs is to educate pupils whose needs have exceeded the capacity of that mainstream school, with a firm focus on re-integration. The re-integration role of PRUs is paramount. Recovering this core purpose was rightly the focus of the Green Paper about PRUs, ‘Back on Track’, issued by the previous Labour government. The core purpose of re-integration, through maintaining links with local mainstream heads, and engendering goodwill with head teachers, will be diluted and possibly lost if PRUs become academies, by definition less connected to the family of local schools.
Exclusions in Academies
28. Permanent exclusion rates in academies are almost three times higher than those in schools as a whole and almost double the rate for local authority maintained secondaries. Many academies, upon conversion, dramatically increase the number of exclusions, apparently as a ‘new broom’ measure. This gives the impression that they are delivering an improved service compared to the school prior to conversion. In reality, however, the most challenging of their pupils are simply passed on to other mainstream schools or alternative provision, or disappear from the system. The NUT is concerned about the impact if this pattern were to be repeated in AP academies.
29. The NUT has evidence from many different areas (including Derbyshire, Cambridgeshire, Nottinghamshire and Sefton) that the increasing number of academies is causing the breakdown of local behaviour and attendance partnerships. These partnerships had previously operated to ensure head teachers co-operated to manage hard to place pupils and move pupils at risk of exclusion, and operated on a belief that all the local heads should take shared responsibility for all the pupils in the area. Many academy heads are refusing to co-operate in these systems.