Preventing school exclusions: collaborations for change
Report
School exclusion can change the course of a young person’s life. It can have long-term implications for their health, wellbeing, and future opportunities.
Preventing School Exclusions
School exclusions are a social justice issue. Systemic factors have created the perfect storm for rising exclusions and relationships are the solution. A renewed focus on trusting, reciprocal relationships, and greater multiagency collaboration between schools and local services is the answer, to make local education systems more inclusive and reduce preventable exclusions.
Our latest action research in education is a three-year project working with three localities across England - East Sussex, Oldham and Worcestershire - to facilitate greater multiagency collaboration to make local education systems more inclusive and reduce preventable exclusions.
The project builds on the findings of our (2020) Pinball Kids research, that showed how a renewed focus on trusting, reciprocal relationships between schools and local services can identify and respond early to pupils’ needs and help reduce exclusions.
In the first stage of this project, we worked with a range of professionals and agencies to understand the local factors that drive or hinder multiagency collaboration. We also spoke with pupils with lived experience of exclusions and their families to capture their perspectives. Engaging with practitioners and beneficiaries in this way helped us create detailed maps of local systems and their dynamics, that informed an RSA-led process in which local stakeholders co-designed improved approaches to collaboration. Findings from this stage of the project are detailed in our Collaborations for Change interim report.
We're now supporting the local collaboratives to implement their plans and working with an independent evaluator to understand the contribution the RSA has made. We hope that this action-research will provide useful, transferable insights on how to support multiagency collaboration to foster inclusion and reduce preventable exclusions.
Attend the launch of our Preventing school exclusions report
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From exclusion to inclusion
Research & Impact Event
Online
Join us as we share learnings from three years of our Preventing school exclusions project.
Latest thinking
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Preventing school exclusions in Tower Hamlets
Policy briefing
Aidan Daly Hannah Breeze Mehak Tejani Nik Gunn
We partnered with Tower Hamlets to help reduce exclusions and improve practice in the borough as part of our Pinball Kids project. This policy briefing shares our findings and connects them to broader debates and trends in national policy and practice.
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Supporting a more inclusive education system in London
Blog
Mehak Tejani
How can we solve the challenge of reducing school exclusions?
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Pinball Kids – preventing school exclusions
Blog
Laura Partridge
School exclusions are increasing. Why? Laura Partridge explains the factors creating a ‘perfect storm’ of exclusions and how creating better relationships are at the heart of the solution.
Funders and partners
