No one likes the idea of excluding a young person from school. We know that the repercussions can be deep and damaging, and can still have an impact a long way into the future. So, what if we just stopped doing it?

That was the question that headteacher Simon Flowers and his colleagues asked themselves - and they haven’t permanently excluded a child for 15 years now. He tells Tes how his school’s approach works.

Tes: School exclusion rates are higher in secondary than in primary. Why do you think this is?

Simon Flowers: There are lots of reasons. Parental engagement at primary tends to be more regular, and parents/carers are more involved in the child’s relationship with the staff and peer group. As the child moves to secondary, the parental/carer involvement diminishes and the preventative conversations become much less frequent.

A knock-on effect of this is that children who have additional learning or behavioural needs struggle more at secondary. They require a wider range of staff to meet their needs in secondary, and if these needs have not been fully identified or managed effectively in primary, they often become more acute.

Finally, secondary schools often choose a “zero-tolerance” approach to behaviour management: this not only leads to high rates of disengagement through exclusion but also limits the opportunities for children and young people across the school to learn and grow in an environment that is reflective of the world they will be living and working in.

Your school hasn’t permanently excluded a child for 15 years now. Can you explain how you have achieved this?

We have committed to never permanently excluding and, instead, to finding ways to include all children, whatever their needs. We are averaging fewer than 10 incidences of fixed-term exclusion a year now, whereas a school with a less complex cohort in the same city can be excluding more than 700 times a year.

To achieve this, we have developed a wide range of whole-school strategies focused on building, maintaining and repairing relationships in order to challenge and support children to reach expectations.

A critical strategy was the introduction of a coaching programme that includes all staff (teaching, support, leadership) working with small groups of children to build strong relationships. The coaching groups replaced tutor/form groups and are made up of children from different year groups, facilitated by an adult (the coach), who acts as an advocate for each of the children.

They meet three times a week to “check in, check up and check out”. They meet in circles to prioritise listening to each other, developing confidence, communication skills and a wide set of positive characteristics. The children learn to relate to peers from other year groups and informally learn from each other. The children often refer to their coaching group as their “school family”.

A focus on character development has also been crucial, prioritising characteristics such as empathy, kindness, determination, compassion, self-control, courage, inclusiveness and so on.

Meanwhile, our restorative approach has provided a language and set of expectations for the whole school community that supports prevention rather than cure. All adults are expected to be part of the preventative approach.

How did you first put this approach into practice?

To start with, we set high expectations for behaviour and articulated these to children, families and staff. We appointed specialist staff to support an inclusive approach to behaviour management. The adults needed training and some needed to move on from the school. We recruited teaching and support staff who were committed to inclusive approaches, and willing to “go the long way around” with children and families.

We work restoratively with children and families, which starts with investing in building and maintaining positive relationships. This takes an investment of time and relational energy, but it develops trust, loyalty and social capital.

It’s a long-term approach to building capacity that, in turn, allows for challenge and support as needed.

The “no tariff” approach to addressing behaviour requires the staff to use their skills and energy to build, maintain and repair relationships with children and families.

Refusing to permanently exclude any child meant we needed alternatives to exclusion, so we developed off-site provision and an on-site withdrawal facility.

After a few years, the need for these diminished, so we removed the on-site facility and cancelled our off-site/alternative provision places.

It was around this time that we introduced restorative practices to the school. We were then able to deepen and refine our relationship-led practice through coaching and other “every child, every chance” strategies.

What is the staff experience like at your school?

Staff retention is high and absence rates are very low. Relationships across the school are strong between staff and pupils, staff and staff, and pupils and pupils.

Morale is good owing to a clear sense of purpose and commitment to the school’s principles, philosophy and approach to inclusion and partnership. We find that professionals now approach the school in the hope of a job.

What have been the biggest challenges you have had to overcome?

This approach requires the adults to be skilful and sophisticated in their practice. They need to be committed to inclusive practice that, for example, works to “learning and relationship agreements” rather than a list of school rules, and doesn’t have “tariffs” for behaviour but rather sees each child and each behaviour in isolation.

The school has built up a reputation for inclusive provision and good outcomes for children. This has led to it being promoted to parents/carers with children who are at risk of exclusion or who have additional needs. Other schools, children’s services and other agencies will actively encourage applications to the school, and we attempt to admit every child we can. But we are oversubscribed across all year groups, so this can be difficult.

What advice would you give to another school that wants to replicate this approach?

If an organisation wants to commit to an inclusive approach that results in no permanent and very few fixed-term exclusions, it will need to develop and hold itself to clear values and principles.

The leaders and governors will need to think deeply about what this will mean for systems, processes, policies and practices across the school.

The commitment is to child-centred approaches, where “every child has every chance”, and a common language that is accessible to pupils, families and staff is central to the development of joined-up practice. A move to more inclusive practice takes time and adults are often the slowest to adapt. Some staff may simply find this too difficult.

Moving to an inclusive approach is not a quick fix because it is dependent on the adults developing or changing their practice and the whole-school community committing to relationship-led approaches.

But it’s worth it. Behaviour, wellbeing and safety have been judged as “truly outstanding” by Ofsted.

Parental confidence in our approach is high, with the school being oversubscribed in both the primary and secondary phases, and also in the autism provision, which we opened two years ago.

Perhaps best of all, we have strong relationships with former pupils, who often return to school if they need support or just to stay in touch. We employ a significant number of former pupils in a range of roles across the school.

Simon Flowers is headteacher of Carr Manor Community School in Leeds

This article originally appeared in the 28 May 2021 issue