The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan has launched London’s first Inclusion Charter to help tackle rising suspensions and absenteeism in schools.
The charter has been developed by the mayor’s Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) in partnership with young people, schools, parents and carers and education specialists and is centred on inclusive practice.
The charter has been developed by the mayor’s Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) in partnership with young people, schools, parents and carers and education specialists and is centred on inclusive practice.
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00:00 What we know is there's a correlation between school exclusions and violence.
00:05 We also know unfortunately there's been a big increase in persistent absenteeism but
00:10 also suspensions.
00:11 Persistent absenteeism has more than doubled.
00:14 Suspensions up by more than 14%.
00:16 When you compare post-pandemic versus pre-pandemic, up by 71%.
00:20 So we know unfortunately we're seeing more children outside school than inside school.
00:25 Unfortunately, we also know from a piece of work done by Ofsted, somebody who was excluded
00:29 from school is twice as likely to carry a knife.
00:32 So we're trying to work with local authorities, work with headteachers, work with schools,
00:36 work with young people and others to try and keep young people in school.
00:41 I'm not telling headteachers what to do.
00:42 I'm not interfering with the discretion headteachers have to exclude a young person if they cross
00:48 a line and it affects the safety and wellbeing of staff or pupils.
00:51 But it's doing our best to try and keep pupils and young people in schools rather than outside