Schools to be fined for expelling too many pupils

Secondary schools in Croydon will have to forfeit the cash if they expel more than a set quota of students, which could be as few as one a year.

The move comes after Schools Secretary Ed Balls announced plans to force all schools, including the most popular ones, to take their fair share of excluded children on a "one out, one in" basis in an attempt to keep the most difficult pupils within the schools system.

Croydon council defended its action today, saying that "exclusion represents a failure on the part of all those responsible for the education of pupils".

But one local head said the fines were a "very blunt instrument" that could cost schools £15,000 per child, once lost government funding was taken into account, and should been more widely discussed.

David Troake of Haling Manor School said: "It is not simply £10,000 that is taken from the school when a pupil is excluded, you also lose up to £5,000 given to cover the costs of educating that pupil.

"The schools have already spent the money given to them to teach that pupil and when it doesn't work you get fined - where does that money come from? From the children who are behaving themselves.

"If schools are running on a tight budget and a very serious incident occurs, where they have to exclude pupils in the interests the other students, then the school is going to face a huge financial loss. It will definitely-affect other pupils who keep their noses clean and want to study. In my view the authority has abdicated its responsibilities and by issuing fines is doing very little to help problem children."

Mr Troake warned that other children's education would also suffer if schools became reluctant to expel unruly pupils for fear of the financial penalty.

Another Croydon head, who asked not to be named, said: "The proposals for the fines were controversial when they came in last September and there's been an enormous amount of heated discussion between headteachers - £10,000 is an enormous sum for any school and the loss ultimately penalises the good children.

"I can see how it is seen as a disincentive to give permanent exclusions but, at the end of the day, no responsible headteacher would put money before the safety of their students."

A council spokeswoman said the £10,000 would go towards paying for the pupils to receive alternative education in Croydon's pupil referral units.

"It is right and proper that schools that exclude children contribute," she added.