Strong relationships between schools and families are recognised as a crucial factor in preventing school exclusions, mitigating risks to ensure a young person stays and thrives in education.
However, there are barriers to doing this vital relationship-building work effectively and too often families do not feel involved as equal partners in their children’s education, particularly when it comes to school exclusions or managed moves.
The London Borough of Tower Hamlets has been working to engage parents in children’s learning and development and improve exclusion practices and processes.
The RSA partnered with Tower Hamlets in 2019 to help reduce exclusions and improve practice in the borough as part of our Pinball Kids project.
Building on that, we have further explored the ways schools and families communicate about behaviour, attendance, and around the exclusions process and sort to answer the following questions:
- How do schools and families communicate about behaviour and attendance changes?
- How do schools and families communicate about the exclusion process?
- What does best practice in building strong school-family relationships that contribute to improved attendance and behaviour look like?
This policy briefing shares our findings and connects them to broader debates and trends in national policy and practice.
Download the Preventing school exclusions in Tower Hamlets policy briefing (158 KB)
pdf 157.7 KB
Pinball kids
Exploring why school exclusions are increasing and how we can support students.
Tower Hamlets’ Behaviour and Attendance Partnership, a multi-agency partnership which includes all schools, settings and LA Children’s Services recognises the key recommendations of the work completed with the RSA and values the people-centred approach taken in order to ensure that the voices of our parents and children can be heard clearly and inform the continuous improvement of our practice in ensuring that we can deliver on our promise of ‘Every chance for Every child’, particularly those most vulnerable to the disruption of their education and therefore the possibility of a reduction in positive life outcomes. We will continue to review and refine our policies and procedures to achieve these outcomes.
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