Head teachers should be barred from suspending a pupil for flouting their school uniform policy, according to the children’s rights champion for England.
Shaving or dying hair or wearing a short skirt, earrings or make-up should never be grounds for excluding a child, Maggie Atkinson says in a report published today after a year-long inquiry into exclusions. The children’s commissioner says that head teachers should use detention or make provision to teach pupils separately until they agree to comply with uniform rules: “It is never appropriate to exclude for minor infringement of school rules such as breach of uniform rules or wearing of jewellery,” the report says.
John Connolly, principal policy adviser to the inquiry, said: “The test we would set on this is if you are not hurting yourself or anyone else or stopping anyone else from learning — those should be the criteria for whether or not it is OK to exclude.” Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, is planning to give head teachers greater freedom over exclusion.
Draft advice published in December removed any reference to uniforms, whereas current guidance says that suspending a child for breaking school rules on appearance should only be done in cases of “persistent open defiance”.
A head teachers’ leader backed Mr Gove’s stance and said that tough action was sometimes required when a pupil or group of children deliberately broke a school uniform policy to test the authority of the head.
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“It is absolutely down to head teachers to decide when it is appropriate to exclude,” said Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders. “That is a freedom that the Government has been very strong in saying head teachers should have and I would be very concerned about anything that limited their independence in making that professional decision.”
A Department for Education spokesman said: “Schools need to be able to exclude disruptive pupils as a last resort to enforce non-negotiable school rules, to protect staff and students and to guarantee that excluded children get the support they need.”