The Difference – An education charity that gets it very wrong about exclusions

As you may know, I have delivered a talk at some researchED events about the evidence that permanent exclusions are necessary and, if anything, they are a bit rarer than they should be. After the national researchED conference, my attention was drawn to the charity The Difference. Their Twitter bio now says:

Bringing the best in education to those children who need it most. Training specialist leaders in Yorkshire, North West, London & South England.

However, their original emphasis seems to have been on exclusions, and their bio used to say:

Fighting to break the link between social exclusion and school exclusion. Our mission: to place excellent teachers in alternative provision schools.

In July, the NAHT made it clear The Difference are trying to reduce exclusions.

In our latest podcast, we find out about The Difference and what it is doing to reduce school exclusions – including its accredited training programme offering school leaders the opportunity to work in an alternative provision setting. @TheDifferenceEd https://t.co/onWEGiqxxw

— NAHT (@NAHTnews) July 26, 2019

The podcast describes “exclusions” as “top of the government’s agenda” and explains that the charity gives school leaders a placement in AP with, “the ultimate aim of reducing school exclusion”. (It also claims that, “every cohort of excluded kids costs the state an extra £2.1 billion” which is around £300 000 per child, something I’d love to see the source for). It is assumed throughout that permanent exclusion is something that happens to, “the most vulnerable students”, rather than in order to protect the vulnerable, and that exclusions should be reduced.

As a school teacher, I have experienced what happens when schools try to avoid excluding – teachers and students are abused, attacked and intimidated while those in charge congratulate themselves for not excluding.  I shared what other teachers experienced in this post “What happens when schools don’t permanently exclude?”. It makes terrifying reading.

The Difference website is even clearer about what they are up to. Their one and only blogpost is an article originally from the TES entitled “How to teach challenging pupils and never exclude them” and it quotes David Whitaker, who is the director of learning at a trust that doesn’t exclude, and who supports the work of The Difference:

He recalls how at both his first placement at the Priory School in Barnsley and his first job at Kingstone School in the same South Yorkshire town that he had found his calling.

“When I had that job in Kingstone, I was teaching 30 kids in a class. You very rarely had a teaching assistant and there was no behaviour structure or system that was there to rescue you. When the door closed behind you you were on your own. You didn’t have a behaviour structure to support you.

“What I had to do is earn the respect of the class, teach really, really well. And if those kids were running around on the desks I had to get them down on my own with my personality and they needed to want to get down off the desks.”

He describes the experience as being daunting but he also believes it is where he learned what he considers is essential to managing behaviour – building up relationships with the pupils. And he worries that some of this is being lost in mainstream education.

“What happens now is that if a kid runs around on the desk there is a button you can press and someone comes and takes the kid out.  At the risk of sounding controversial I think we are at risk of deskilling.”

Incredible as it seems that anyone could suggest that it is, “deskilling” to support teachers faced with a attempted riot, I am not surprised as I had previously read a Guardian article about Whitaker; in it he described the approach he used (not at a mainstream school) to his staff being repeatedly abused:

One 11-year-old girl, Whitaker recalls, responded with a curt “Fuck off!” every single morning for a year. That particular response would be met with instant isolation, detention or expulsion in many schools – but not at [this school]…

Instead of disciplining her, teachers paid the girl more positive attention in an attempt to understand the angst she was bringing from home. Within a year, she had stopped her morning outburst and got along with school staff….

….[the school’s] teachers vow to approach every child with what they call, “unconditional positive regard” – or in Whitaker’s words they, “batter the children with kindness”. It’s in sharp contrast to the “no excuses” approach used in a growing number of schools…

At [this school], Whitaker says, it means rewarding children for the smallest things – like being kind to fellow pupils – and not punishing bad behaviour. “I could have a kid that spits in my face today and tomorrow I’ll be OK with them,” he says. And if a pupils throws over a table and swears at the teacher? “The teacher would be really nice to them, talk nicely….

Now, I realise that in AP teachers have to accept there may be more challenging behaviour than at a mainstream school  But The Difference exists to take approaches from AP and apply them in mainstream schools in order to reduce exclusions. It matters if any AP providers are tolerating abusive behaviour, refusing to punish and then mainstream SLT are meant to learn from this and apply it. As a teacher who does not want to be told to accept abuse and disruption, I am concerned about which approaches from AP The Difference may be promoting in mainstream education.

Worse though, it has been accepted that The Difference are experts. Kiran Gill, the Chief Executive of The Difference was part of the Timpson Review of Schools Exclusions and gave evidence to the Education Select Committee. She made her beliefs clear to the committee.

Thelma Walker: Would you suggest then that, if the curriculum in mainstream were inclusive and met the needs of children in mainstream, there would be fewer children in AP? Obviously, if it was more inclusive and the staff were appropriately trained, then that early intervention in mainstream would avoid the high numbers that are going into AP.

Kiran Gill: I think that is ideal. …. if we know exclusion levels were lower, then we know we can return to lower exclusion levels.

Thelma Walker: If you have senior leaders that buy into inclusivity, the holistic whole-child curriculum and positive behaviour management, then that will prevent—

Kiran Gill: Absolutely. That is our theory of change. As David said, we need to attract people and there need to be incentives. The Difference programme seeks to recruit existing mainstream teachers who are committed to becoming specialists, to upskill them in a placement in alternative provision, and also to broker them for future leadership opportunities back in the mainstream sector. It is that leadership that is an incentive.

Now, there is no reason progressives who believe that we should stop excluding should be silenced, but we need to stop treating people with this ideology as “experts” rather than campaigners. This blogpost was prompted by the fact that there was a conference run by The Difference yesterday, and there were a couple of things claimed at the conference and then shared by their Twitter account.

 

This was later deleted

“The average life expectancy for someone who has been excluded is 47 years” says @AlisonKriel #IncludEd

— The Difference (@TheDifferenceEd) November 9, 2019

Fuller context, to the second tweet was given by the TES:

‘Average life expectancy of someone who is excluded from school is 47 years – so we’re talking about shortening people’s lives if we don’t take responsibility for what we’re doing’ says @AlisonKriel at #IncludEd conference

— Tes (@tes) November 9, 2019

Obviously, neither of these claims are true. (If anyone disagrees I’m happy to discuss it in the comments.) I am going to suggest that schools, policy makers and politicians simply stop listening to groups like The Difference. They are willing to spread information that I think most school leaders would dispute. This serves a clear ideological commitment to reducing exclusions. They should be free to disseminate their political opinions as an ideological campaign, but we need to move on from letting this anti-teacher, anti-discipline agenda be promoted in schools.

“Some of these kids fail because we’re just not teaching them well enough. Look at your practice, not just their behaviour” Estelle Morris #IncludEd

— The Difference (@TheDifferenceEd) November 9, 2019

 

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