A prominent academy trust CEO has said leaders need to “call out” schools that “attempt to curate their rolls”.
Speaking at a Labour conference panel today hosted by Education Policy Institute, Jonny Uttley said school leaders need to start a wider conversation around inclusion.
Answering a question about the rise in pupils not in school, The Education Alliance boss said: “There are some schools that attempt to curate their role, they don’t seek to welcome every single young person in their community.
“And I think [we need] an honest conversation – a data driven conversation – around that.”
Uttley added this should be “party driven by school leaders, to say that we need to call out schools and stop rewarding schools that have done that for too long”.
He did not say state which practices he was referring to, but Uttley has more generally criticised the impact of fair banding admission practices.
A Schools Week investigation earlier this month also revealed how schools are turning away vulnerable pupils, capping cohorts to refuse in-year entries and wrongly shutting out children in care.
Reports estimate more than 300,000 pupils are missing from school – an increase of 41 per cent since 2017.
Ofsted inclusion disappointment
Uttley, who led an inclusion review for the Centre for Young Lives, added he was disappointed Ofsted’s new framework will not look at such issues.
An independent wellbeing report, commissioned by Ofsted, also found stakeholders were concerned the new framework would worsen the use of practices around “selection at the point of entry to a school”.
This would “increase the incentive for ‘cream-skimming’ in the sector”, and leave schools committed to inclusivity “with an ever more challenging intake”.
Georgia Gould, the new schools minister, added she had met parents and youngsters “who are desperate to be in school, but have found out that local schools aren’t able to meet their needs.
“It should be that every young person has a school in their community that is inclusive and able to meet their needs. That has to be at the heart of reforms.”
Alongside Ofsted’s new inspections, government will introduce “school profiles” – which will look at providing data around inclusivity of local communities.
School support ‘next stage of opportunity mission’
Elsewhere on the panel, Gould (pictured below) said schools “at their strongest are anchors in communities”.
But she added “there’s been so much pressure on teachers, as other services have pulled away, to try and solve every single issue within the school.
“I think we need to wrap that support around teachers – whether its CAMHS, youth services, mentoring … so where young people are struggling at home, for whatever reason, that there is support in place for them.”
However she said new initiatives such as the Best Start Family hubs, school-based nurseries, free breakfast clubs and the extension of free school meals are “all the bedrock to learning”.
“I think the opportunity to knit together services around people in places to link up [for example] the neighbourhood health offer, the Pride in Place investment – and to put schools at the heart of that, that’s transformative for families.
“And so the next stage of the opportunity mission is really centring education and schools up to that wider support offer – so we are all getting behind children at every stage to reach their potential.”
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