Alternative provision (AP) leaders are urging ministers to use the long-awaited Schools White Paper to shift the sector’s focus towards supporting pupils before, rather than after, exclusion.

Their calls come as the government is set to announce reforms to make mainstream schools more inclusive and ensure spending on special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is financially sustainable.

It also follows concerns about rising exclusions, with the Conservatives calling for more AP settings to help “disruptive” pupils move out of mainstream classrooms.

But leaders of AP settings and pupil referral units (PRUs) say that the sector needs more support to help children at risk of exclusion, and to work more closely with mainstream schools.

The comments chime with a report published today by the children’s commissioner calling for a national definition of AP, and warning that the work of these settings is not widely recognised or understood.

Inclusive education system

Heads and trust leaders say a key step in moving towards a more inclusive education system would be to ensure that AP settings are funded and commissioned to do more work “upstream” to support pupils at risk of exclusion.

Emma Bradshaw, CEO of Alternative Learning Trust, a five-school trust with AP settings and special schools in the South East, said: “What we need to be doing is lots of support work, lots of outreach, lots of assessment to work out what’s behind the behaviour of a pupil in mainstream. Are there unmet special needs? Is it something going on in a child’s vulnerable background?”

“Because that work is not statutory, it doesn’t get funded,” she added. “What gets funded is the system that waits until we’ve got a permanent exclusion - and then you’ve got a very complicated little person with complex behaviours who is often very challenging.”

Ms Bradshaw said there is great partnership work happening between mainstream and AP settings to prevent exclusions.

But she told Tes that more should be done to standardise this, and called on the government to ensure that local authorities have to commission upstream work as part of the statutory school offer in each area.

More funding for preventative work

The need to ensure more preventative work is done was echoed by many leaders in AP settings who spoke to Tes.

Christina Jones, CEO of the River Tees multi-academy trust, which runs five predominantly AP settings in the North East, said: “Where a mainstream school keeps a pupil dual-registered, and we provide support, we have much more success because that school still owns that pupil.

“Over a period of time, we can work together to address not just what that pupil needs, but what the school needs to do to be more inclusive.”

She said APs can provide early support for pupils and trauma-informed training for mainstream staff, but warned the only consistent source of funding was for “single registered, permanently excluded learners”.

Support for a three-tier approach

Ms Jones pointed to the last government’s SEND and AP Improvement Plan, which started trialling a three-tier approach to AP support for pupils in mainstream schools.

These tiers included one offering targeted support in mainstream schools, where AP specialists provide early interventions and support to help at-risk pupils stay in mainstream schools.

The second tier featured time-limited placements in AP schools to assess and address pupils’ needs, with the expectation of a return to their mainstream school.

And the third tier involved transition placements in AP schools for pupils needing support to move on to a new mainstream school or post-16 setting.

Ms Jones said this approach would allow schools to address the number of pupils being permanently excluded through early upstream work.

“At the moment, the tension is that we’ve got all the learners who have been permanently excluded, and we’re not funded to do that intervention work,” she explained.

The three-tier approach was trialled in a number of local authority areas under the last government’s Change Programme.

Duty for AP and mainstream to collaborate

Stephen Steinhaus, CEO of Solihull Alternative Provision Multi Academy Trust, suggested the White Paper should demand that AP settings and mainstream schools work together.

He said: “My belief is AP starts from the second a child doesn’t engage with whatever is being presented to them in the corridor, classroom or assembly hall of a mainstream school.

“AP doesn’t have to be about bricks and mortar. My hope for the inclusion paper is for a system of ‘conscripted collaboration’ that says [to mainstream schools and AP], ‘You must work with each other and listen to each other.’”

The government has made clear that it expects mainstream schools to accommodate the needs of more pupils with SEND.

And there has been an increased emphasis on inclusion, which is now one of the six main evaluation areas that Ofsted will judge schools on under its new inspections.

AP best placed to ensure inclusive system

Mr Steinhaus believes that the AP sector is best placed to help ensure the system becomes more inclusive.

He said: “If you want to know the gaps in the system, talk to the kids who have been cast out of it. Look at their data, look at their attendance, look at their progress, look at their skill set, their knowledge, their academic level, their literacy, in particular.

“And then who better to add muscle to the system than the people who are working with those children and having an impact?”

Mr Steinhaus called for investment and input to be put in place in mainstream schools through either direct intervention from APs working with pupils or from mainstream schools being able to “learn and copy some of that alternative provision, not just the techniques and pedagogy, but the mindset - believing that they can adapt and adjust”.

High exclusion ‘should trigger Ofsted visit’

There are concerns among AP and PRU heads about the level of permanent exclusions from mainstream schools.

A Tes investigation last month highlighted a belief that too many pupils are being excluded for “persistent disruptive behaviour”, and a better definition of when this definition should be used.

Robert Gasson, CEO of Wave Multi Academy Trust, which runs 11 academies in the South West, including AP settings, warned that there are still problems with exclusion and off-rolling (where a pupil is removed from roll without a formal exclusion).

“For pupils with SEND, off-rolling and inappropriate moves into elective home education (EHE) frequently mask a school’s inability to meet need,” Mr Gasson said.

He has called for the White Paper to include plans for “any school where more than 2 per cent of pupils are permanently excluded for persistent disruptive behaviour, or who have 1 per cent move into EHE, to automatically have a statutory Ofsted safeguarding visit triggered”.

Fund ‘halfway house’ in mainstream

Some experts say the current system, in which APs and PRUs take pupils and return them to mainstream, is simply not working.

One PRU leader, who asked to remain anonymous, said: “When kids get to us, we can do the work that is needed, but what is not working is when we return a child to mainstream and that school isn’t able to offer the same amount of knowledge, skill and experience that the staff in PRUs can offer.”

They warned that sometimes this was because a pupil could thrive in smaller settings or class sizes, but that was more difficult for a mainstream school to provide.

The PRU leader suggested one solution the government could explore would be to fund mainstream schools to be able to operate a “halfway house”, in which they can go back to their school but still benefit from additional support.

Specialisms within PRUs

The PRU leader added: “If funding could be attributed specifically for schools to manage the transition of children back in, they could have a staff team.

“They could have an internal provision that is like the halfway, so that when a kid is coming back into mainstream, they go via that room.

“And actually, if they’re never ready for a full return to mainstream, but they’re successful in that room that becomes their permanent setting, rather than an AP or PRU becoming the permanent place, because we are not designed to be that. If pupils stay with us, it means we don’t have capacity for new pupils coming in.”

The PRU leader also suggested the government could look at specialisms or designations within PRUs.

They said: “In PRUs at the moment, what you’ve got is a mixing pot of everyone that doesn’t fit anywhere else. This means you’re designing curricula to meet needs where some pupils have emotional vulnerability, some have medical needs, for some it’s behaviour linked to trauma and for some it’s behaviour linked to SEND.

“All these really require different strategic approaches, and you can’t then do that in one setting.

“You just have to have your own version of ordinarily available provision, which you can then adapt for individuals, whereas if you had provisions that were more specifically aimed at different needs, we could be more strategic in our support.”

Unregistered provision

There are also calls for the government to ensure more oversight of unregistered AP.

Mr Gasson warned that there “should be no circumstance in which a child is placed in unregistered or unregulated provision”.

He added: “Too often, pupils with the highest levels of need - particularly those with SEND - are educated in settings that lack the oversight required to guarantee safety, quality and inclusion.

“All pupils educated in third-party provision must remain on the roll of a school, and every such provision should be formally registered through that school.”

How do you retain AP talent?

Leaders also warn that the funding system not only needs to be strengthened to allow for more proactive work, but also to ensure AP settings can hire and keep the most talented staff.

Mr Steinhaus said recognising the importance of AP staff should be a key focus of a drive to make the school system more inclusive.

He warned that funding is needed to improve support for the recruitment and retention of qualified professionals, particularly in AP and special schools where staff need a specialised set of skills.

“If this sector is underfunded, or if it is funded in a risk-averse way - instead of funding what we think we might need - we’ll fund it on a sort of pay-as-you-go basis, which means we don’t retain those people of quality, and I know for a fact they will end up in the independent sector,” he said.

And added: “So what I would say to [education secretary] Bridget Phillipson is: how do we fund and craft our system in a way that makes those who choose to dedicate their life to it feel valued, so that in our settings, some of the pupils who’ve had the most fractured experience of that system can also feel valued again?”

You can now get the UK’s most-trusted source of education news in a mobile app. Get Tes magazine on iOS and on Android