1 00:00:10,100 --> 00:00:20,370 Welcome to the sixth and final seminar in Excluded Lions series that you've been running since just before the Christmas lights. 2 00:00:20,370 --> 00:00:25,310 Qatar is a large multi-site in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, 3 00:00:25,310 --> 00:00:35,120 multi-disciplinary everything from assembling work, rural economics and criminology. 4 00:00:35,120 --> 00:00:44,780 All sorts of different versions of education, human geography, social policy trying to get as the name of the project implies, 5 00:00:44,780 --> 00:00:55,000 a much more holistic overview of the lives, the consequences, the lives of young people who get excluded from school and by exclusion. 6 00:00:55,000 --> 00:01:00,040 We don't simply mean parents or experience exclusion. 7 00:01:00,040 --> 00:01:06,470 We always refer to somebody else and ask to leave the classroom, which actually in Wales, 8 00:01:06,470 --> 00:01:12,980 40 percent of children are asking the question, which is an interesting point. 9 00:01:12,980 --> 00:01:23,540 So the same thing is talked about from inclusion to exclusion, transforming the lives of young people with special educational needs and disabilities. 10 00:01:23,540 --> 00:01:32,000 This is being led by Chris Morris and Jo Porter, who is a former teacher, 11 00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:40,670 doctoral researcher and member of Parenting, especially children with particular emphasis on young people. 12 00:01:40,670 --> 00:01:51,600 And Jim Fawcett was. Professor University of Redding has moved here as an honorary research of its 13 00:01:51,600 --> 00:01:58,020 work on the principle of working over the sanity aspects of the of the project. 14 00:01:58,020 --> 00:02:07,790 So there's almost nothing wrong with girls, so we usually speak. 15 00:02:07,790 --> 00:02:13,220 The speakers speak for about 45 minutes and then it's time for questions after. 16 00:02:13,220 --> 00:02:19,580 Thank you very much. Thank you. And I'll start my time totally at the time. 17 00:02:19,580 --> 00:02:26,840 It's interesting. I was kind of at one point I was thinking, Well, I see a sandy session coming last in this series, 18 00:02:26,840 --> 00:02:31,730 you know, because they account for almost half of children who are excluded from school. 19 00:02:31,730 --> 00:02:39,740 So it kind of felt a bit odd that actually everybody else was talking about perspectives of inclusion, and the Sun came at the end. 20 00:02:39,740 --> 00:02:48,770 But since then, I've kind of thought, actually, it's a good thing because it it draws on all the ones, all the presentations that have gone before. 21 00:02:48,770 --> 00:02:54,590 So I'm kind of thinking that in some ways there'll be some things that come out of today that people will have heard before, 22 00:02:54,590 --> 00:03:03,500 and I kind of apologise for that because it's drawing. It does draw on strands from previous presentations. 23 00:03:03,500 --> 00:03:15,680 One of the things I'm very conscious of is that and why it's got slightly odd title is that the narrative you're kind of showing my age here, 24 00:03:15,680 --> 00:03:26,420 the narrative. When we talked about at the end who is used to be about inclusion and developing schools that were the needs of diverse learners. 25 00:03:26,420 --> 00:03:36,470 So we were very much at the end inclusion then. And suddenly today, when we talk about CND, the focus seems to be so much on exclusion. 26 00:03:36,470 --> 00:03:47,060 And one of my concerns that kind of underpins when we look for explanations about why children with special educational needs is so overrepresented. 27 00:03:47,060 --> 00:03:59,240 One of my concerns is that actually we stop thinking about how we make good learning environments to thinking about how we cater for additional needs, 28 00:03:59,240 --> 00:04:04,040 with an emphasis on the bureaucratic procedures that fall behind that actually, 29 00:04:04,040 --> 00:04:09,890 rather than on anything that might be about encouraging good provision. 30 00:04:09,890 --> 00:04:14,520 So that's why there's a kind of slightly odd title. 31 00:04:14,520 --> 00:04:24,320 The other caveat to say is that both of us are talking from the perspective of pupils that are in secondary education. 32 00:04:24,320 --> 00:04:28,820 So I apologise to anybody who's sitting here who's got a primary focus, 33 00:04:28,820 --> 00:04:39,230 and data is exclusively UK data, although the English data, although the project is across the UK. 34 00:04:39,230 --> 00:04:49,310 So what I'm going to do is to look at how all this kind of raft of publications have attempted to 35 00:04:49,310 --> 00:04:56,300 explain what it is that's happening when it comes to children that are being excluded from school. 36 00:04:56,300 --> 00:05:00,310 I'm going to look at it what? I'm going to look at it from two levels. 37 00:05:00,310 --> 00:05:03,650 And Ruth is going to pick up on the third level. 38 00:05:03,650 --> 00:05:14,270 So I'm going to look at the kind of macro level, first of all, in terms of what we learn from these big policy reports and government statistics. 39 00:05:14,270 --> 00:05:20,750 And then I'm going to kind of move down a level to thinking about what we've learnt in Harry and myself, 40 00:05:20,750 --> 00:05:29,510 in fact, through research that we've done at a school level about SIMD and inclusion exclusion. 41 00:05:29,510 --> 00:05:39,370 And then Ruth. Let's be careful to say here is going to do very much thinking about kind of at a at a at an individual level. 42 00:05:39,370 --> 00:05:51,100 So thinking about the voices of young people who've been excluded. She's particularly thinking about goes on the autistic spectrum. 43 00:05:51,100 --> 00:06:03,330 OK. But first of all, this may feel odd because I'm sure that you're all very familiar with the definition of special educational needs. 44 00:06:03,330 --> 00:06:12,000 If people who were here last week remember that Lucinda made this very strong case that when it comes to skin, 45 00:06:12,000 --> 00:06:20,430 the children are protected if you like, safeguarded their needs is safeguarded legally through the Children and Families Act. 46 00:06:20,430 --> 00:06:27,810 And we know this definition of special educational needs has been around for a long time. 47 00:06:27,810 --> 00:06:33,600 A child or young person has a special educational need if he or she has a learning difficulty or disability, 48 00:06:33,600 --> 00:06:37,350 which causes special educational provision to be made for her. 49 00:06:37,350 --> 00:06:46,980 It's a very kind of circular definition. I'm sure statisticians would like something that's quite much more specific because, 50 00:06:46,980 --> 00:06:51,060 of course, it depends on the context in which the child finds themselves. 51 00:06:51,060 --> 00:07:00,710 The extent to which actually they need special educational provision, which means, of course, there's huge variation in what children receive. 52 00:07:00,710 --> 00:07:09,440 Interestingly, the Children of Families Act don't define disability, is it labelled firmly on the front end? 53 00:07:09,440 --> 00:07:20,000 But disability is not defined parents so case there was any doubt what a parent was seeing is not if we want a definition of disability, 54 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:23,840 we need to challenge the equality and human right condition. 55 00:07:23,840 --> 00:07:30,680 And I don't apologise for putting this up because when we were involved in a lot of research in schools, 56 00:07:30,680 --> 00:07:38,540 actually schools didn't necessarily understand at that point what a disability was. 57 00:07:38,540 --> 00:07:42,890 It tended to be equated to children in a wheelchair. 58 00:07:42,890 --> 00:07:51,860 The important thing about this being that it's first and foremost a child has a physical mental impairment, but it's not that on its own, 59 00:07:51,860 --> 00:08:00,590 which determines the child has a disability is actually the impact of that impairment or physical and mental health condition. 60 00:08:00,590 --> 00:08:05,960 The impact being that it has an adverse effect on a person's ability, chance ability. 61 00:08:05,960 --> 00:08:16,820 You can tell this was written up for an adult audience, a child's ability to participate in normal day to day activities and disability. 62 00:08:16,820 --> 00:08:22,370 Data collection research identified the fact that although culturally, 63 00:08:22,370 --> 00:08:27,740 the government now puts D on the end of a C and D actually there's overlapping groups. 64 00:08:27,740 --> 00:08:36,370 Not all disabled children fall within having a special educational need. 65 00:08:36,370 --> 00:08:45,460 OK. And for prevalence, which I think is highly relevant to discussions today, 66 00:08:45,460 --> 00:08:52,450 we've got a very static line of children who go through a formal assessment process. 67 00:08:52,450 --> 00:08:59,320 Two point eight percent The amber line along the bottom there who have more complex needs. 68 00:08:59,320 --> 00:09:10,480 But we've got a much more varied profile for children who don't have complex needs but are recognised as having a special educational need. 69 00:09:10,480 --> 00:09:16,270 And we see that that peaked in 2010, at which point if people remember, Ofsted said. 70 00:09:16,270 --> 00:09:21,790 We're recognising too many people with too many children with special educational needs, 71 00:09:21,790 --> 00:09:31,440 and we then see a fall and another particular fall at 2014, when actually the category of C in. 72 00:09:31,440 --> 00:09:39,360 Without a statement, without being formally recognised, ceased to be two categories and became one category. 73 00:09:39,360 --> 00:09:47,990 People remember we used to talk about ACM. Thank you. 74 00:09:47,990 --> 00:09:53,160 And see an action in action plus. 75 00:09:53,160 --> 00:10:03,720 Yeah, thank you. Whereas now we just talk about science support so suddenly that group of children seem to have disappeared from the system, 76 00:10:03,720 --> 00:10:12,240 that group that were recognised in school as having a special educational need and who needed things at the school level that were different, 77 00:10:12,240 --> 00:10:20,190 but for whom other people weren't part and parcel of analysing the difficulties at a stroke. 78 00:10:20,190 --> 00:10:24,060 Those children have disappeared out of data collection, 79 00:10:24,060 --> 00:10:35,530 they've kind of ceased to cease to exist in terms of skin, hence the fact that we see a fall at 2014. 80 00:10:35,530 --> 00:10:39,220 So you might think, oh, yes, great government might think great, yes. 81 00:10:39,220 --> 00:10:47,650 The instance of ASEAN is going down, but the reality of it is that it's jus definitions, as we might predict. 82 00:10:47,650 --> 00:10:53,440 What I can't do is provide you with data that goes on, right, well, what about children with a disability? 83 00:10:53,440 --> 00:10:59,140 Because of course, the government system of collecting that is not on educational terms, 84 00:10:59,140 --> 00:11:05,680 it's not until a young person reaches the age of 16 or 18 that in fact, 85 00:11:05,680 --> 00:11:15,560 the data exists about children with students with a disability and their educational outcomes. 86 00:11:15,560 --> 00:11:23,570 I put this up just to show you data from Alice Black's analysis about the ways in which 87 00:11:23,570 --> 00:11:30,710 the the percentage of children being educated in special schools is increasing again, 88 00:11:30,710 --> 00:11:37,820 quite a sharp rise from about 2010. Interestingly. Yeah. 89 00:11:37,820 --> 00:11:42,350 That the proportion. So when we talk about exclusion, 90 00:11:42,350 --> 00:11:53,340 actually this is this is part of the picture that increasingly children are being admitted to and educated in special school settings. 91 00:11:53,340 --> 00:12:00,180 When it comes to looking at the exclusion data, so these are permanent exclusions. 92 00:12:00,180 --> 00:12:07,470 I've done it from 2010 to 2018, and you see that steepest level of rise. 93 00:12:07,470 --> 00:12:14,210 Maybe, unsurprisingly, when it comes to permanent exclusions, are those children with ASEAN support. 94 00:12:14,210 --> 00:12:18,690 Although exclusion overall has increased the steepest rises. 95 00:12:18,690 --> 00:12:32,550 Those children, although there is when it comes to permanent exclusion, an increase for those who formally recognise the ACP group. 96 00:12:32,550 --> 00:12:38,100 And the data at the moment suggests that pupils with less than support have the highest permanent 97 00:12:38,100 --> 00:12:46,050 exclusion rate and those six times higher than the rate for pupils with no special educational needs. 98 00:12:46,050 --> 00:12:53,430 And when it comes to looking at children with it, UHC plan, they've got the highest fixed period exclusion rate. 99 00:12:53,430 --> 00:13:02,500 So fixed parity exclusion rate, and that's five times higher. And that's just a graph that kind of illustrates the. 100 00:13:02,500 --> 00:13:11,740 And, of course, as part of the picture. So I kind of what I'm doing is scene setting, and so I guess is definitely a problem here. 101 00:13:11,740 --> 00:13:18,420 So there's all sorts of unofficial and other forms of exclusion that are happening. 102 00:13:18,420 --> 00:13:30,360 Children experiencing isolation rooms being sent home to calm down or cool off, or because there's nobody to look after them off rolling is going on, 103 00:13:30,360 --> 00:13:39,140 etc. with their being the overrepresented in the group that are withdrawn from school to be home educated. 104 00:13:39,140 --> 00:13:52,140 Oop. So let's put an analysis about what's happening in the context of what we know about special educational needs. 105 00:13:52,140 --> 00:13:54,270 As part of the government review process, 106 00:13:54,270 --> 00:14:06,120 the select committee has reported on what they think is happening actually a pretty damning picture of what's contributing to exclusion, 107 00:14:06,120 --> 00:14:11,450 but also what's going wrong in the world. 108 00:14:11,450 --> 00:14:20,360 You might recognise this quote from the 2014 reforms have resulted in confusion and at times unlawful practise, bureaucratic nightmares, 109 00:14:20,360 --> 00:14:31,370 buck passing and a lack of accountability, strained resources and adversarial experiences, and ultimately dashed the hopes of many. 110 00:14:31,370 --> 00:14:36,410 And what they see as the problem is actually not the reforms themselves, 111 00:14:36,410 --> 00:14:42,410 that actually what they were intended to do and their aspirations were good aspirations, which they would stick by. 112 00:14:42,410 --> 00:14:52,140 So there's nothing wrong with the act. It's about the implementation. So the implementation of the Code of Practise and. 113 00:14:52,140 --> 00:14:55,440 I've never read actually such damning comments about the DFA. 114 00:14:55,440 --> 00:15:04,470 We do not think the DFA is taking enough responsibility for ensuring that its reforms overseen the department has left it to local authorities, 115 00:15:04,470 --> 00:15:10,200 inspectorates parents in the courts to operate and police the system. 116 00:15:10,200 --> 00:15:17,850 I think it's a useful turn of phrase that kind of the system needs policing the intense focus on educational, 117 00:15:17,850 --> 00:15:28,550 health and care plans, and the transition date has led to the children honesty and support being neglected. 118 00:15:28,550 --> 00:15:33,920 They do talk about the fact that there should be a cultural change in what's happening. 119 00:15:33,920 --> 00:15:52,680 But what they don't mean is it is it the cultures of schools changing, but the culture of buck passing of unlawful practise needs to change. 120 00:15:52,680 --> 00:16:00,660 So that if you like, is a failure of policy implementation, if you look, oh, I've done it again. 121 00:16:00,660 --> 00:16:11,610 If you look at the National Audit Office review, as you would imagine, this is all about funding and how funding is being used. 122 00:16:11,610 --> 00:16:23,970 So the explanation of the difficulties in SIMD provision is that funding hasn't kept pace with a rise in pupil numbers. 123 00:16:23,970 --> 00:16:30,450 In fact, they talk about the fact that the government failed to cost the 2014 reforms adequately. 124 00:16:30,450 --> 00:16:41,490 So actually, this should not be a surprise. Local authorities are increasingly overspending their budgets for supporting pupils with high needs, 125 00:16:41,490 --> 00:16:50,610 more boring special schools and in non-maintained special specialist probation, so the money comes from central government. 126 00:16:50,610 --> 00:16:59,650 For those kids that have a formal recognition? And if you spend more than you actually get as a local authority, 127 00:16:59,650 --> 00:17:10,870 then actually you have to find other budgets for supporting those kids because you have a legal obligation to meet them. 128 00:17:10,870 --> 00:17:16,450 Most local authorities have transferred money from their schools block to their high needs block. 129 00:17:16,450 --> 00:17:20,290 They're for reducing money available for mainstream. 130 00:17:20,290 --> 00:17:34,270 So if you like mainstream, is paying for the rise in pupil numbers rather than more money being pulled down centrally and more damning. 131 00:17:34,270 --> 00:17:39,670 Still, the department has limited assurance about the quality of support for pupils with SIMD in mainstream 132 00:17:39,670 --> 00:17:50,690 schools and no way of explaining the local variation on the inconsistency of support across the country. 133 00:17:50,690 --> 00:17:57,500 So one account for the mess we're in in terms of day and exclusion. 134 00:17:57,500 --> 00:18:03,550 From the National Audit Office, point of view is about resources. 135 00:18:03,550 --> 00:18:11,680 And this is supported by surveys of her teachers in school that one of the prime press 136 00:18:11,680 --> 00:18:17,690 shows that key pressure for 28 percent is the additional needs of some children, 137 00:18:17,690 --> 00:18:25,120 i.e. the cost of additional needs of some children. Schools have to find that money to meet their needs, 138 00:18:25,120 --> 00:18:32,470 and the response has been to reduce the hours or numbers of teaching assistants to balance the budget. 139 00:18:32,470 --> 00:18:43,380 So the explanation about it? Exclusion is to do in a way with a lack of teaching assistance. 140 00:18:43,380 --> 00:18:51,120 According to the National Audit Office. In fact, as we've seen elsewhere in the exclusion literature, 141 00:18:51,120 --> 00:18:58,440 what happens is that this kind of perverse incentives operating in the way that the funding happens. 142 00:18:58,440 --> 00:19:02,940 What you get is under identification of some needs. 143 00:19:02,940 --> 00:19:08,730 Yes, because schools are incentivised to not identify children who are crying such 144 00:19:08,730 --> 00:19:13,110 additional support if they actually don't have the money to provide to cater for them. 145 00:19:13,110 --> 00:19:26,480 Yeah. So if unless actually. Children need more than £6000 unlikely to be able to identify their needs if they haven't got the money to provide them. 146 00:19:26,480 --> 00:19:38,690 But at the same time, the statement saying the CPP process has led to an overall identification of needs because what is viewed as a golden ticket, 147 00:19:38,690 --> 00:19:47,960 if you haven't got enough resources and actually you need to put your children down that route in order to access the resources. 148 00:19:47,960 --> 00:19:55,670 And there's been a 50 percent increase in demand for local authorities to carry out UHC needs assessment. 149 00:19:55,670 --> 00:20:08,420 So that puts additional pressures on the system because it is a heavily bureaucratic process, so which falls in mainstream on same course. 150 00:20:08,420 --> 00:20:14,690 So what you get is Sancho's being tied up in a bureaucratic process of identification of needs rather 151 00:20:14,690 --> 00:20:25,980 than the process of supporting teachers in classrooms to meet Jordan with additional needs support. 152 00:20:25,980 --> 00:20:38,470 I'm not going to spend too long on this because I think. Lucinda did a great job on it, and she'll be up there on iPod. 153 00:20:38,470 --> 00:20:47,600 So that's in relation to ASEAN. Yeah. So those children who also fall under the label of having a disability. 154 00:20:47,600 --> 00:20:54,610 Should be safeguarded by the Equality Act. Yes. So where's the other children of safeguarded by the Children's and Families Act? 155 00:20:54,610 --> 00:21:01,600 Those children should have an additional or separate safeguard, which is about litigation. 156 00:21:01,600 --> 00:21:17,220 Yes. So they should be protected. By the Equality Act, but the justice report, which Lucinda in Dimensions, says that one of the difficulties is that. 157 00:21:17,220 --> 00:21:26,430 People can easily interpret the the Equality Act about treating every child the same way as, 158 00:21:26,430 --> 00:21:31,770 in actual fact, what they should be doing is making reasonable adjustments. 159 00:21:31,770 --> 00:21:39,050 So as my quote done here puts. 160 00:21:39,050 --> 00:21:46,370 Requires schools to make reasonable adjustments to policies and practises that may put disabled pupils at a disadvantage. 161 00:21:46,370 --> 00:21:57,930 So this could involve. Applying disciplinary sanctions differently to disabled pupils in order to avoid putting that at a substantial disadvantage. 162 00:21:57,930 --> 00:22:03,680 And that's particularly problematic for schools that have a zero tolerance process. 163 00:22:03,680 --> 00:22:07,760 Because the expectation is actually, you know, one. 164 00:22:07,760 --> 00:22:15,200 One, misbehaviour and you're out, it doesn't repeat itself, actually lead to the accommodation of behaviours, 165 00:22:15,200 --> 00:22:27,170 and the justice report also talks about headteachers kind of feeling quite constrained in terms of making, 166 00:22:27,170 --> 00:22:31,400 making, treating some pupils differently to other pupils. 167 00:22:31,400 --> 00:22:37,640 That fact being flattered by the situation. 168 00:22:37,640 --> 00:22:49,400 And, of course, the the tribunal system that's designed to protect those children is actually incredibly cumbersome. 169 00:22:49,400 --> 00:22:56,570 I did a review on how many people actually use the tribunal system. 170 00:22:56,570 --> 00:23:04,800 Lots of people, lots of parents of children with special educational needs who will bring claims that relate to admissions. 171 00:23:04,800 --> 00:23:13,170 But very few parents bring claims when it comes to unfair, unreasonable, discriminatory treatment. 172 00:23:13,170 --> 00:23:19,410 And those parents do. It's how it has a very low success rate. 173 00:23:19,410 --> 00:23:26,890 If you look up the statistics, I think something like one hundred and thirty eight parents brought a claim. 174 00:23:26,890 --> 00:23:36,870 And there's not much data in terms of what they were, what the unfair treatment was, but the exclusions form at least a significant part of it. 175 00:23:36,870 --> 00:23:42,240 But very few of those ones that are presented are actually upheld at the end of the day. 176 00:23:42,240 --> 00:23:47,040 And part of that difficulty is the kinds of information that parents have to provide 177 00:23:47,040 --> 00:23:53,520 to a court about being treated unfairly about the school's behaviour policy. 178 00:23:53,520 --> 00:23:57,270 Actually, it's quite difficult for them to get access to it. 179 00:23:57,270 --> 00:24:01,650 And also, of course, a very stressful situation. 180 00:24:01,650 --> 00:24:15,680 So the system is is heavily underutilised, and in that sense, it's kind of not fit for purpose, for safeguarding those kids. 181 00:24:15,680 --> 00:24:24,430 How am I doing for time? Yeah, just very briefly to put up the The Timpson review. 182 00:24:24,430 --> 00:24:28,650 It actually doesn't talk about SIMD very much or did a kind of word search on it, 183 00:24:28,650 --> 00:24:35,150 and I think this 36 references out of can't remember how many pages to send. 184 00:24:35,150 --> 00:24:43,010 But what it does do is talk about the fact that what we tend to have is kind of separate bits of guidance, 185 00:24:43,010 --> 00:24:46,880 you know, ones that deal with exclusion, some that deals with SGMD. 186 00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:56,210 And actually, it needs to be clear and accessible, and they need to be looked at together to make sure that they're actually consistent. 187 00:24:56,210 --> 00:24:58,400 What I was pleased about, though, when I looked at it, 188 00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:14,470 is that what it does do in a way that the pure CND stuff publications don't is actually talk about children with ASEAN support needs. 189 00:25:14,470 --> 00:25:21,970 I'm talking about writing about the importance of schools working towards removing the barriers to education, 190 00:25:21,970 --> 00:25:27,220 and so very much about kind of thinking at schools level in terms of removing barriers rather 191 00:25:27,220 --> 00:25:37,750 than this kind of bureaucratic process of wheeling people through the identification system. 192 00:25:37,750 --> 00:25:48,750 OK. So. That's kind of looking at the kind of the landscape, but a kind of macro level. 193 00:25:48,750 --> 00:25:54,450 We've done a series of studies looking at kind of school level, 194 00:25:54,450 --> 00:26:05,010 and I put up the first one really because it it provided a window onto kind of how we moved on to thinking about what was going on. 195 00:26:05,010 --> 00:26:15,450 We were invited way back to help schools develop materials to enable them to identify their disabled children. 196 00:26:15,450 --> 00:26:25,770 And part of that process was about looking at how children viewed the children's own voice about how 197 00:26:25,770 --> 00:26:32,160 they viewed what was helpful in school and what constituted barriers to participation in school. 198 00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:35,550 So this went out. It didn't pick up particular disabled kids. 199 00:26:35,550 --> 00:26:42,390 It went out across the board, particular age groups and schools who chose the online questionnaire. 200 00:26:42,390 --> 00:26:48,810 They were twenty five of them. There was something like 1600 pupils that filled it in. 201 00:26:48,810 --> 00:26:54,160 And two things struck us about the findings. 202 00:26:54,160 --> 00:27:00,400 One about the fact that when you looked across disabled and non-disabled children, 203 00:27:00,400 --> 00:27:05,410 actually the sorts of things they mentioned in terms of barriers and supports were very similar. 204 00:27:05,410 --> 00:27:11,320 It's not as if actually the disabled children were some very, very different discrete group they were. 205 00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:15,600 There was a similarity between them. 206 00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:25,890 But if you looked at the ratings, what was clear is that forgive and forget and barriers, children experienced more of an impact of them. 207 00:27:25,890 --> 00:27:37,640 Yes. So whereas the non-disabled kids would say that things weren't OK, for example, the disabled children would say they were bad or very bad. 208 00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:41,610 So they were experienced more acutely. 209 00:27:41,610 --> 00:27:52,140 And the sorts of things that came up when they rated different times and places about finding difficult was getting on with classmates, 210 00:27:52,140 --> 00:27:57,990 joining in school activities, lessons moving around and during school events. 211 00:27:57,990 --> 00:28:06,180 So they were kind of part and parcel that was highlighted. And the support which I didn't put up there. 212 00:28:06,180 --> 00:28:13,420 So those are things that were difficult. When asked a question about what they found helpful. 213 00:28:13,420 --> 00:28:17,620 They talked about people in particular. 214 00:28:17,620 --> 00:28:25,390 Interestingly, they talked about friends, the importance of friends, helping them through difficult times, 215 00:28:25,390 --> 00:28:32,260 and it kind of foregrounded for us the importance of thinking about the school environment in terms of 216 00:28:32,260 --> 00:28:41,200 relationships and the link that has between actually being an environment where you're where you're learning, 217 00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:45,430 where you're progressing and an environment in which you feel you belong. Yeah. 218 00:28:45,430 --> 00:28:53,440 And if you don't feel that you belong, actually you're learning is is much more limited as indeed we would all feel. 219 00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:59,200 I look back on this. I kind of think, Oh, we should have predicted a lot, but we didn't at the time. 220 00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:09,310 And my last slide more recently, what we've been looking at is still looking at barriers in support and looking at them for all children, 221 00:29:09,310 --> 00:29:15,010 but also putting into that picture how connected children feel to school. 222 00:29:15,010 --> 00:29:23,780 So the extent to which children feel that they belong in school and looking at the relationship between them. 223 00:29:23,780 --> 00:29:31,150 And this is a kind of very brief snapshot from our. 224 00:29:31,150 --> 00:29:43,990 From our findings. It what I put up, there are kind of things that offer all kids, particularly that. 225 00:29:43,990 --> 00:29:53,920 In the four schools that we looked across, I think they were almost 600 kids that we asked about this and actually moving around the school 226 00:29:53,920 --> 00:30:01,330 was problematic and three out of the four schools that we kindly took part in our survey. 227 00:30:01,330 --> 00:30:12,900 And actually, when you looked at the the school estate. For many schools, it was a very crowded environment and the impact on that. 228 00:30:12,900 --> 00:30:18,300 You know, I suspect the people in their everyday kind of blocky sound. 229 00:30:18,300 --> 00:30:28,290 But if you're constantly jostling down corridors, that actually leads to poor relationships between kids who kind of push and shove. 230 00:30:28,290 --> 00:30:34,920 And then, of course, you know, if that's happening outside the lesson, then it carries on into the lesson. 231 00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:41,430 But it also impacted on things that help pupils feel part of what's happening. 232 00:30:41,430 --> 00:30:45,240 So being with their friends and having time on their own, 233 00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:56,940 the children wrote about finding it difficult and understanding lessons of lessons going too fast and wanting better explanations. 234 00:30:56,940 --> 00:31:09,700 And this links with something that Harry mentioned in a previous session about children feeling safe and the importance of friends. 235 00:31:09,700 --> 00:31:13,960 If you don't feel safe and lessens the importance of friends and being with 236 00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:20,350 friends or being near friends in terms of helping you in that circumstance, 237 00:31:20,350 --> 00:31:24,100 I'm just looked at the time I was passed over to Ruth and I, 238 00:31:24,100 --> 00:31:35,980 a Passover just living a quote here from Roger Sleigh just about we can get seduced by, by statistics, large numbers. 239 00:31:35,980 --> 00:31:42,310 But what we should all be thinking about is that these intensely individual and personal experiences? 240 00:31:42,310 --> 00:31:57,040 OK. Hello, everybody. So what I'm going to talk through for the rest of the session is looking at absence as a form of exclusion. 241 00:31:57,040 --> 00:32:03,100 So I'll be talking about absent voices who are the participants within my study, 242 00:32:03,100 --> 00:32:07,000 the methods that I chose to try and empower these particular individuals, 243 00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:11,680 reframing their narrative of why they're not in school and and then round you up 244 00:32:11,680 --> 00:32:20,800 at the end with a summary and hopefully some questions for you to take away. 245 00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:31,540 OK, so my research is around why a growing number of autistic adolescent girls are stopping attending mainstream secondary schools. 246 00:32:31,540 --> 00:32:37,510 And and this came about really with a conversation with an educational psychologist who kind of gave me this information 247 00:32:37,510 --> 00:32:45,280 and and really the research was a question about how do we how do we find out why they're they're stopping attending? 248 00:32:45,280 --> 00:32:52,540 We know that these girls have been historically absent from our understanding of autism and from stories of exclusion. 249 00:32:52,540 --> 00:32:58,600 If we think about autism, most people stereotypically think of a male person, a boy, Sheldon Cooper. 250 00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:04,390 Maybe until very recently, we didn't know that girls could be autistic. 251 00:33:04,390 --> 00:33:09,310 In fact, there are many, many autistic girls. I have an autistic daughter. 252 00:33:09,310 --> 00:33:19,960 And when we think about exclusion, we tend to think more about boys being excluded than about girls necessarily being excluded to the same extent. 253 00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:25,930 So, so I want to talk about absence itself as a form of exclusion about children 254 00:33:25,930 --> 00:33:30,820 and young people not being in school because they are excluded in some way. 255 00:33:30,820 --> 00:33:37,540 So perhaps through absenteeism, are they are they not in school because actually they're too anxious to attend? 256 00:33:37,540 --> 00:33:42,670 So they have an authorised absence because they're ill, but actually they're not ill, 257 00:33:42,670 --> 00:33:49,930 that it's anxiety all they actually absent because they they can't be in the classroom 258 00:33:49,930 --> 00:33:55,000 because it's too difficult for them to perhaps manage the sensory environment. 259 00:33:55,000 --> 00:34:03,430 Or are they absent from the playground because they're too worried that they're going to be abused or 260 00:34:03,430 --> 00:34:10,030 bullied in some way or they're not in the dining hall because that's when people are always mean to them. 261 00:34:10,030 --> 00:34:15,130 Well, they actually in the classroom, but they're not engaged with any learning. 262 00:34:15,130 --> 00:34:22,900 Or are they discouraged from attending a particular lesson because they're not particularly good at it or because they need more support during it? 263 00:34:22,900 --> 00:34:26,260 And for those children who actually stop pretending to be home educated, 264 00:34:26,260 --> 00:34:32,980 is that because they've chosen to be home educated or because they feel that that's an preferable option, 265 00:34:32,980 --> 00:34:38,110 even though they'd rather be in school learning? So how do we how do we find out? 266 00:34:38,110 --> 00:34:44,260 Well, the way that I wanted to find out was was actually by valuing the lived experience of the individual, 267 00:34:44,260 --> 00:34:49,120 by actually going to the young people and asking them for their personal experiences. 268 00:34:49,120 --> 00:34:54,430 And this is a quote from John A. Williams, who is an autistic woman, 269 00:34:54,430 --> 00:35:04,570 and she was talking about how important it is to to judge things or to understand things from the inside rather than judging it from the outside. 270 00:35:04,570 --> 00:35:11,410 And although this is obviously relevant to autistic young people, I think it's also relevant for for anybody as an individual. 271 00:35:11,410 --> 00:35:18,270 How do we know how each of us feel until we ask them personally? 272 00:35:18,270 --> 00:35:23,700 So it was important to me to to actually start gathering narratives, and I thought that would be the way forward. 273 00:35:23,700 --> 00:35:29,340 And what I was hoping to do. I've got my my laptop open here so I can look at the notes. 274 00:35:29,340 --> 00:35:35,460 Of course, I'm not looking to do anything. I just going to close it now just in case. 275 00:35:35,460 --> 00:35:45,240 So I wanted really to to kind of provoke a broader conceptualisation of exclusion that would include absence as our part of our understanding. 276 00:35:45,240 --> 00:35:51,720 I wanted to eliminate some of the contributing factors to the absence of these young people that were of value to them, 277 00:35:51,720 --> 00:35:57,060 rather than maybe to the school staff or to the parents or to policymakers. 278 00:35:57,060 --> 00:36:00,900 And I wanted to propose some recommendations for practise based on their own 279 00:36:00,900 --> 00:36:05,250 personal experience and their knowledge of what helps and what doesn't help, 280 00:36:05,250 --> 00:36:07,140 because it's all too easy to make assumptions, 281 00:36:07,140 --> 00:36:14,330 isn't it about what we should be doing to help without actually working out if that's the right thing to do? 282 00:36:14,330 --> 00:36:21,830 So the message that I chose where the chief, first of all, I wanted to use a participatory framework, 283 00:36:21,830 --> 00:36:27,650 so I wanted the the people with the young people within my study to be very much involved in feeling 284 00:36:27,650 --> 00:36:33,740 that they were they were part of the research rather than me doing the research to them as such. 285 00:36:33,740 --> 00:36:42,110 So I had an advisory group of three adolescent autistic females who worked with me on working out what the research should look like, 286 00:36:42,110 --> 00:36:49,320 what the question should look like, you know, right down to the sort of email I should be sending and the information I should be providing 287 00:36:49,320 --> 00:36:53,450 and the sorts of ways I could interview these young people that might work for them. 288 00:36:53,450 --> 00:37:00,620 And then the participants within the study were very much collaborators and co-producers of knowledge, as you'll see as we go through. 289 00:37:00,620 --> 00:37:07,250 The methods I chose, I had two different methods. One was looking at personal constructs, psychology, looking at the girls, 290 00:37:07,250 --> 00:37:12,140 understanding their personal construct of the ideal school and what could be learnt from that. 291 00:37:12,140 --> 00:37:20,720 And the other was looking at their own life history narratives about their experiences of school, what worked and what didn't work. 292 00:37:20,720 --> 00:37:26,090 Within my research, I actually had 10 participants that began the research. 293 00:37:26,090 --> 00:37:34,520 They all had a clinical diagnosis of autism, some with co-occurring conditions as well, all aged between 11 and 16. 294 00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:40,100 When they began the research with me, no diagnosed learning difficulties. 295 00:37:40,100 --> 00:37:46,820 In fact, they all define themselves as academically able. Female at birth. 296 00:37:46,820 --> 00:37:51,260 And that's relevant because what are the participants with my study? 297 00:37:51,260 --> 00:37:58,250 Although the rest identified us as female, this particular participant who we'll hear more from in a moment. 298 00:37:58,250 --> 00:38:05,390 They define themselves as gender fluid, so I'll be using the pronouns they and them for them. 299 00:38:05,390 --> 00:38:14,270 And all of the participants began mainstream secondary school, but had stopped attending at some point. 300 00:38:14,270 --> 00:38:23,270 So the idea of a school exercise, basically, I had nine different categories that I wanted to ask them about. 301 00:38:23,270 --> 00:38:29,690 So first of all, started to asking What can you tell me about the sort of school you would not like to attend? 302 00:38:29,690 --> 00:38:34,430 And then right now, tell me about the sort of school we would like to attend. 303 00:38:34,430 --> 00:38:42,950 It's based on a model that's been used. Moran used the personal self construct of the self. 304 00:38:42,950 --> 00:38:47,630 And then there's also been the ideal school construct, which I basically amended. 305 00:38:47,630 --> 00:38:56,870 I'm just trying to think find the slide. So Williams and Hank in 2007 first came up with the ideal school approach. 306 00:38:56,870 --> 00:39:03,980 Both of these options, the school, you don't want to go to the school, you do want to go to where supposedly of an imaginary school. 307 00:39:03,980 --> 00:39:09,680 And this is my first interview with participants and this is the results of of Robin. 308 00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:16,410 Now, once I'd finished the ideal school, I asked participants to do some diamond ranking for me and just pick out, 309 00:39:16,410 --> 00:39:22,130 say, the nine top factors for them in their ideal school. 310 00:39:22,130 --> 00:39:28,400 So for Robin, these are the things that came out and we've categorised them sorry back. 311 00:39:28,400 --> 00:39:36,170 Categorise them by colour for you. So at the top, you can see for her, the most important thing was the choice of a life. 312 00:39:36,170 --> 00:39:40,790 So she wanted to be able to work through her school work, but she also wanted free time, 313 00:39:40,790 --> 00:39:46,070 and she also wanted to be happy to be independent and to be herself. 314 00:39:46,070 --> 00:39:50,240 And she wanted her peers to be mature and respectful. 315 00:39:50,240 --> 00:39:55,250 You can see there's also information there about the sort of teacher, and they wanted flexibility. 316 00:39:55,250 --> 00:40:00,830 She wanted to be able to enjoy her lessons. The sort of classroom she wanted was quite important. 317 00:40:00,830 --> 00:40:08,270 You can see actually she left mainstream and ultimately she ended up working through an online provider which provided her with her ideal classroom. 318 00:40:08,270 --> 00:40:11,240 Actually, because it was her bedroom and she could make it, 319 00:40:11,240 --> 00:40:16,100 she could actually control her complete environment, and for her, that was really important. 320 00:40:16,100 --> 00:40:23,710 And she can fidget without disrupting others, which makes me think that that was possibly drawn from her own experience. 321 00:40:23,710 --> 00:40:31,780 The second thing that we did was we started looking at personal narratives using a charge like this. 322 00:40:31,780 --> 00:40:36,310 Basically, I sent out to each of the participants before Interview asked them on this 323 00:40:36,310 --> 00:40:43,840 to add on any positive and negative memories of their experiences of school. 324 00:40:43,840 --> 00:40:52,300 Very much what they could remember. And then they sent it back to me, and I devised interview questions around their personal charge. 325 00:40:52,300 --> 00:41:02,310 So this is Alex. It's deliberately blurring, so you can't read, watch what they've written. 326 00:41:02,310 --> 00:41:07,180 And I'm just going to read through some of the things around here so that you can get a feel for it. 327 00:41:07,180 --> 00:41:14,040 What if the first thing is supposed to be quite interesting is that you can see for them and indeed for most of the other participants in my story, 328 00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:18,810 study attendance at school was full of positive and negative experiences. 329 00:41:18,810 --> 00:41:25,850 And that's really important because we can learn from the positive as much from the negative. 330 00:41:25,850 --> 00:41:35,120 So if we look down. So basically, they're lying horizontal line going across is looking at chronology. 331 00:41:35,120 --> 00:41:43,940 And then the higher up above the neutral line have this red line, the better the experience from the lower down that, the more negative experience. 332 00:41:43,940 --> 00:41:48,800 So one of the things we did when we finish talking about all those different experiences was 333 00:41:48,800 --> 00:41:54,620 I asked each of the individuals to pick out some events and tell me why they didn't work, 334 00:41:54,620 --> 00:42:01,280 what was wrong, how else could they have been better supported and same for the top? 335 00:42:01,280 --> 00:42:09,950 Now, Jill mentioned earlier on about peace and possibly getting any actually paid in order to secure funding, 336 00:42:09,950 --> 00:42:16,340 secure support this particular participant. I think this is where she got. 337 00:42:16,340 --> 00:42:19,970 He got a fake story. They got their ship at that point in there. 338 00:42:19,970 --> 00:42:25,430 And one of the things that came out of my study is maybe if she if they had better support earlier on, 339 00:42:25,430 --> 00:42:36,440 we might have been able to avoid everything that came after. So some of the negative events were. 340 00:42:36,440 --> 00:42:44,610 She got they got frustrated because they weren't able to communicate. 341 00:42:44,610 --> 00:42:54,090 A best friend left the school, this is one of the ones down here, and again, possibly she had a teacher who disliked me being inquisitive. 342 00:42:54,090 --> 00:42:57,900 That was one of the lowest marks on the life charts. 343 00:42:57,900 --> 00:43:02,820 And that actually came out quite a lot with the participants that they had a teachers who wouldn't ask wouldn't 344 00:43:02,820 --> 00:43:08,940 allow them to ask questions or limited them to two questions per lesson because they ask too many questions. 345 00:43:08,940 --> 00:43:15,600 This sort of thing happened quite early on. Charles mentioned belonging and this one over here. 346 00:43:15,600 --> 00:43:21,270 This is around didn't feel part of a group didn't feel like I belonged. And up here, she tried. 347 00:43:21,270 --> 00:43:29,970 She joined the netball team to try and fit in, but that was really just a way of trying to cope. 348 00:43:29,970 --> 00:43:41,760 I can. Part of this one here is being bullied at school and and the final one at the end there is they lost the library libraries, a safe place. 349 00:43:41,760 --> 00:43:50,430 A lot of the participants talked about having a safe place to go to, either between lessons or either over lunch, for example. 350 00:43:50,430 --> 00:43:57,060 A lot of them gravitated to the library and a lot of them lost that space. They were told they weren't allowed to go there. 351 00:43:57,060 --> 00:44:02,370 And this particular participant ended up spending break time sat outside the next lesson, 352 00:44:02,370 --> 00:44:10,140 which is in that last black circle at the end, the all opportunities there. 353 00:44:10,140 --> 00:44:18,000 If somebody had asked what was going on for possibly specific action and support to be put in place, 354 00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:23,610 oh sorry, I just want to talk about the stars as well. So, so the good things are up here. 355 00:44:23,610 --> 00:44:29,460 We've got things like the first stories where she was taken out into a small group 356 00:44:29,460 --> 00:44:34,710 and the teacher enabled them to ask as many questions as they wanted to their life. 357 00:44:34,710 --> 00:44:41,160 To be curious, they were like being positive. They were working at the right level for them academically and at the right pace. 358 00:44:41,160 --> 00:44:50,940 It's also, as I say, a small group and that was also helpful. A lot of the negative impacts were were deteriorating mental health. 359 00:44:50,940 --> 00:44:57,660 A lot of the positive ones were being referred for support and then that not working and her dipping down again. 360 00:44:57,660 --> 00:45:02,910 And the second star was when they actually left mainstream. 361 00:45:02,910 --> 00:45:07,210 So all of this has gone on in between. 362 00:45:07,210 --> 00:45:13,840 OK, so one of the things I want to talk about was the importance for the individual of choosing the right strategy. 363 00:45:13,840 --> 00:45:19,450 I'm guessing you've all heard of exit cards or time out passes, that sort of thing. 364 00:45:19,450 --> 00:45:26,200 It seems to be a go to strategy, particularly for autistic young people, for some reason. 365 00:45:26,200 --> 00:45:38,350 And these are some of the comments from the young people in my study about the exit paths that they were given when they were not able to cope. 366 00:45:38,350 --> 00:45:48,900 And the same participants before, Alex. So basically feeling that they couldn't use it. 367 00:45:48,900 --> 00:46:01,470 Daisy felt it was quite useful. Leaving two minutes late, arriving two minutes earlier for her, that would have helped. 368 00:46:01,470 --> 00:46:09,030 Erin would never have used it because she didn't want to stand out. 369 00:46:09,030 --> 00:46:15,740 And Jane didn't want to use it, took her that she eventually did gigs, it took a long time to use it. 370 00:46:15,740 --> 00:46:23,350 When I have a few problems with with the use of the time out card in itself, it clearly works for some people, not genuine for many. 371 00:46:23,350 --> 00:46:27,410 And and the reason I have a problem with it is because it doesn't actually 372 00:46:27,410 --> 00:46:30,830 address the reason the child needs to leave the classroom in the first place. 373 00:46:30,830 --> 00:46:35,810 And that's where I would like the learning to go and be actually asking those questions. 374 00:46:35,810 --> 00:46:41,630 If the young person a lot of a lot of the girls were put on part-time timetables. 375 00:46:41,630 --> 00:46:45,650 My own daughter has been put on a part-time timetable before and that the the 376 00:46:45,650 --> 00:46:49,880 words that come back from schools who I'm sure are trying to be supportive are, 377 00:46:49,880 --> 00:46:53,480 you know, as soon as they feel able to come back into class, they can. 378 00:46:53,480 --> 00:47:00,710 And what that does is locate the problem within the child and says as soon as the child can fix herself, she can come back in. 379 00:47:00,710 --> 00:47:08,960 Whereas actually, what I'd like to see is schools and individual teachers thinking, OK, so they've obviously left the classroom for a reason. 380 00:47:08,960 --> 00:47:18,730 What is that reason? How can we fix that so that they can then return and be involved included in those lessons? 381 00:47:18,730 --> 00:47:26,760 OK, so what have we learnt? Well, it's reframe the narrative a little bit about these why these girls are out of scope. 382 00:47:26,760 --> 00:47:30,960 As expected, they all said the school environment was really important to them. 383 00:47:30,960 --> 00:47:35,850 A lot of them were experiencing sensory overload. Joe mentioned the crowded environment. 384 00:47:35,850 --> 00:47:45,000 That's certainly a problem as well. However, when we looked at the personal construct exercise and they started to rank their responses, 385 00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:49,830 most participants said it was the ethos of the school that was most important and the attitudes 386 00:47:49,830 --> 00:47:54,540 and understanding of the adults that were more important than the actual environment. 387 00:47:54,540 --> 00:48:03,510 And the reason for that is nicely defined by Rosie, who says they don't know why they do things US teachers and agree with the reasons behind it. 388 00:48:03,510 --> 00:48:11,430 They just won't do it. I did a piece of research before this where I went to primary schools and talked to teachers and 389 00:48:11,430 --> 00:48:16,020 Sancho's and the young people themselves and parents and teachers were saying things to me like, 390 00:48:16,020 --> 00:48:18,660 Oh yeah, she's she's got a wobble cushion, but she doesn't need it. 391 00:48:18,660 --> 00:48:24,630 We've kept it in the in the cupboard all year, and it's that kind of the teacher didn't really agree with it. 392 00:48:24,630 --> 00:48:28,820 Therefore, it wasn't happening. 393 00:48:28,820 --> 00:48:36,320 OK, so I just want to show you quickly the sort of responses we got from this sort of school that you wouldn't want to attend. 394 00:48:36,320 --> 00:48:47,920 Anybody want to hazard a guess for what sort of things they thought the school would care most about the sort of school they wouldn't want to attend? 395 00:48:47,920 --> 00:48:51,840 Anybody went to me. Uniform? Yeah, possibly. 396 00:48:51,840 --> 00:48:58,200 Anybody else want to have a guess? Another language. Exam results. 397 00:48:58,200 --> 00:49:06,120 OK, so look. Yes, that's that's the one that overwhelmingly came out, it was schools that prioritise good grades, 398 00:49:06,120 --> 00:49:14,290 which is interesting because these girls were all highly academic. They all wanted to go to university. 399 00:49:14,290 --> 00:49:19,330 Rewards, what does the school reward conforming? 400 00:49:19,330 --> 00:49:20,830 Just getting good grades. 401 00:49:20,830 --> 00:49:28,090 Not actually doing anything as long as you do what everybody else wants and that that's part of the problem when you are these, 402 00:49:28,090 --> 00:49:33,010 these girls obviously all had a neurological difference they didn't fit. 403 00:49:33,010 --> 00:49:39,370 And that's part of the problem. In a school that values conformity, they're always going to struggle outcomes. 404 00:49:39,370 --> 00:49:44,070 You're all the same. OK, so this sort of school we would like to attend. 405 00:49:44,070 --> 00:49:50,630 What do you think they care about the most? Well-Being. Yeah, absolutely. 406 00:49:50,630 --> 00:49:59,430 Mental health. Achieving the impossible, being happy, having free time friends, definitely relationships come in there as well. 407 00:49:59,430 --> 00:50:06,860 Absolutely. They went to the school that would reward them for being helpful, kind of working hard. 408 00:50:06,860 --> 00:50:11,230 Daisy mentions perseverance, and I think that's so much more valuable than the word resilience. 409 00:50:11,230 --> 00:50:13,970 You know, so often these girls were told to be more resilient, 410 00:50:13,970 --> 00:50:20,870 but they weren't actually offered any support or any any way of things changing in school unless it came from them. 411 00:50:20,870 --> 00:50:30,380 And that's very hard, isn't it, to be resilient, told to be resilient for things that really perhaps you shouldn't have to be resilient for? 412 00:50:30,380 --> 00:50:36,500 And the outcomes they wanted go and achieve their dreams, be happy, feel safe and again, 413 00:50:36,500 --> 00:50:48,030 in line with what Joe was talking about, safety is really important and most of these girls did not feel safe. 414 00:50:48,030 --> 00:50:54,280 This is Rosie. This is Aaron, I do apologise for my behaviour at school was perfect. 415 00:50:54,280 --> 00:51:02,700 And this really brings in that, you know, it's difficult with a teacher by observation to necessarily know whether a child is struggling. 416 00:51:02,700 --> 00:51:05,310 That's why, again, it's important to speak to the individual. 417 00:51:05,310 --> 00:51:11,030 You wouldn't have been able to tell by looking at area that necessarily that she was struggling so much. 418 00:51:11,030 --> 00:51:22,350 But she wanted to be in school, in fact, all these girls would have preferred to be in school learning had the environment been suitable for her. 419 00:51:22,350 --> 00:51:31,620 OK, so summary, the individual perspectives of the autistic girls absent from school have a lot of consistencies, 420 00:51:31,620 --> 00:51:41,220 with the findings of young people excluded formerly from schools, things like relationships belonging for girls who are absent from school. 421 00:51:41,220 --> 00:51:49,500 There was also a potential link between deterioration, significant deterioration of mental health that combined with the loss of education. 422 00:51:49,500 --> 00:51:57,830 So they were kind of put in the position of I have to stop going to school because my mental health can't take it anymore. 423 00:51:57,830 --> 00:52:02,930 They rejected the environment and the ethos of the school they were in, but they did want to be learning, 424 00:52:02,930 --> 00:52:08,660 and people like Robin were very definitely challenging the purpose of school and the structures of school. 425 00:52:08,660 --> 00:52:15,520 So what can we do? Focus on people well-being, very important. 426 00:52:15,520 --> 00:52:23,100 Ask, don't assume, because if we don't ask, we won't know and support not threatened. 427 00:52:23,100 --> 00:52:26,760 They've all said, don't send me a letter threatening me or my attendance. 428 00:52:26,760 --> 00:52:32,580 That's not helpful. And don't take away questions. 429 00:52:32,580 --> 00:52:37,510 Why is a child absent from school? Are we asking the right questions? 430 00:52:37,510 --> 00:52:41,860 Are we asking the right people and I would argue that unless you're asking the young people, 431 00:52:41,860 --> 00:52:51,250 you're not and how it answers on absence and exclusion differ if you gathered people voice and compared it with a teacher evaluation of need. 432 00:52:51,250 --> 00:52:57,390 What is the impact? Who is the impact upon? Are we just thinking of the other children in the class? 433 00:52:57,390 --> 00:53:06,010 Very important. Are we thinking about the impact on the teacher? But are we also thinking about the impact on that young person? 434 00:53:06,010 --> 00:53:14,100 How does that affect the provision of support and who decides what the support should be given and when? 435 00:53:14,100 --> 00:53:24,096 And this, of course, to take away thank you.