Idea of Deprived

In this paper I’m going to talk about the idea of the deprived concentrating on absence and exclusion issues in inner city schools. Disadvantage focuses on those who are situated at the lower end of the dimension, whether this is educational, economic or social. Educational disadvantage is defined (by the Education Reform Act of 1988) as the 'impediments to education arising from social and economic disadvantage, which prevent students from deriving appropriate benefit from education in schools'. Truancy and Exclusion are outcomes of educational disadvantage, and this paper will examine the causes and reasons looking at how the results of truancy have had an effect on generations past and present.

Truancy is defined as 'any absence of part or all of one or more days from school during which the school attendance officer has not been notified by the parent or guardian of the legal cause of such absence of the student' (Attendance/Truancy Policy').

Educational disadvantage can arise for many reasons. Children with intellectual or physical disabilities are hindered, but so are children from certain social and economic backgrounds. Children from these backgrounds are more likely to live in a worse environment, for example siblings of one-parent families and households with low incomes. Of course, disadvantage exists in rural areas, but it is often in the inner cities that the worst problems are found. High-density population tends to mean living in greater proximity to crime and drugs and it frequently means living in poor quality housing. Children are also more likely to be emotionally upset by the tension in their lives and they are less likely to have the opportunity for study and educational support at home.

Problems in families play an important role in education. Poverty and fear of employment prospects can undermine motivation. Children can become de-motivated when school seems boring, too difficult, or unlikely to lead anywhere and in some cases this leads to them dropping out of education entirely. Both truancy and exclusion are associated with a significantly higher likelihood of becoming a teenage parent, being unemployed or homeless later in life, or even ending up in prison. Many of today's truants are in danger of becoming tomorrow's criminals. Parents bear the primary responsibility for ensuring that their children attend school and home circumstances exert an important influence over pupil attendance. A Youth Cohort study report showed that truants tend to be older pupils and from poorer backgrounds. Their parents are more likely to be in lower skilled than in professional or managerial jobs, and are more likely to be in local authority housing ('Truancy and Youth Transitions'). Truants are more likely to leave school with few or no qualifications and like others with low qualifications, those who miss school are more likely to be out of work at age 18 and therefore more likely to become homeless or live in poor housing.

The influence of what happens in school is also a major factor. For example bullying, pressure of exams and more commonly just plain boredom. School truancy is one of the most common outcomes of bullying. Bullied children prefer to risk getting caught out of school than to get caught by the bullies. One research study reports that one third of girls and one quarter of boys described being afraid of going to school at some time because of bullying. Bullying is very often due to racism, which in general terms consists of conduct or words or practices which disadvantage or advantage people because of their color, culture or ethnic origin.

As we have seen, there are many reasons and causes for truancy and unfortunately, several cases of persistent truancy result in exclusion from school. A department for education report showed that permanent exclusion represents 0.4% of primary school pupils, 0.34% for secondary and 0.54% for special needs schools.

OFSTED research highlights poor acquisition of basic skills, particularly literacy, limited aspirations and opportunities, poverty and poor relationships with pupils,

parents and teachers. Excluded pupils generally experience considerable disadvantage with high levels of family stress, including unemployment, low income and family disruption.

Most excluded pupils are white, male, young teenagers but a number of groups are disproportionately likely to be excluded. Children with special needs are 6 times more likely than others to be excluded. Children in care are 10 times more likely to be excluded according to a National Foster Care report. Perhaps as may as 30% of children in care are out of mainstream education.

In 1993, the department for education published figures which revealed that African Caribbean children made up 85% of all children permanently excluded from schools in England and Wales even though they only made up 2% of the total school population. They are 6 times more likely than others to be excluded from schools. An OFSTED study found that African-Caribbean children who had been excluded had a higher proportion living with a single parent. Even though they tended to be of higher ability, they were said by schools to be under achieving. A 1996 OFSTED review concluded that there were high levels of tension between white teachers and African Caribbean pupils.

The number of all students permanently excluded from schools rose dramatically in the 1990's. The annual increase has slowed down in recent years but the overall numbers have continued to rise with more than 12,000 young people excluded in 1998. If a child does not attend school, then their chances of reaching a minimum level of educational attainment are greatly diminished. As we have seen, schools often find themselves having to deal with problems that should have been dealt with by families, or by other public agencies and the cost of exclusion spills over into the wider community. There are often good reasons for schools to exclude children but too many children are being excluded for relatively minor reasons, or because they needed help which they didn't get. Ignorance is a barrier to action, everyone involved in education has a responsibility if there is to be any possibility of understanding, of embracing rather than excluding.

The government already provides support to individual schools through Standard Funded projects, and other means, and since 1998 exclusion issues have been central to the programme of Education Action Zones, giving priority to plans for achieving serious reductions. The Education Action Zones emphasis on educational under- performance will help to break the vicious circle of learning and attendance problems, while the community focus of zones will help to draw in other partners to bolster the efforts of the schools.

By the end of this year, the target of the Social Exclusion Unit is to reduce truancy by one third. The Department for Education will be encouraging Local Authorities to inform magistrates of local truancy problems so they have them in mind when considering cases and the police will be given an explicit power to pick up truants from the streets.

Knowledge about exclusion will be improved and the Department for Education will consult with local authorities over the procedures for setting targets. The Secretary of State for Education will ask OFSTED to conduct special inspections of ten schools each year which have disproportionately high levels of exclusion or truancy and exclusion issues will be made central to the programme of Education Action Zones.

National targets to reduce the level of exclusions are all very well, but this will not work unless schools are given the resources and support they need to tackle the growing number of pupils who ruin the education of their fellow students.