Comment: problem pupils

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The Government's approach to the problem is no more coherent. Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, favours a policy of one-in, one-out, whereby if a school expels a pupil, it must take in a pupil expelled by another school. This notionally gives a pupil a fresh start in a new environment; its likely effect, however, is to penalise schools that are attempting to exercise a consistent discipline policy.

The real solution is to provide better provision for excluded children in pupil referral units in terms of teaching and discipline so that problem pupils can ultimately return to mainstream education. Such units are expensive to run yet most have a poor reputation. But forcing schools to keep pupils they would otherwise expel is not the answer.