School exclusions have been increasing at an alarming rate. Huge proportions of excluded children have special educational needs and other, often unaddressed, vulnerabilities. In many cases there is literally nowhere for them to go. All children must have access to the high-quality full-time education that gives them the best chances in life, to stay away from harm and go on to achieve their potential.
All too often the moment of school exclusion is the tipping point that leads to young people picking up knives. It’s increasingly clear children outside of mainstream schools are at serious risk of grooming and exploitation by criminal gangs. Professionals talk of the ‘pupil referral units (PRU) to prison pipeline’. We must act now to stop the flow.
This paper summarises the APPG on Knife Crime's findings from meetings and independent research, and makes a number of recommendations. Our aim is not only to help schools reduce the numbers of exclusions, but to improve the quality and availability of alternative provision, and break the link between exclusion and crime once and for all. We are incredibly grateful to all the young people, parents, education providers and policy experts who took part, and to the councils who took the time to respond to our research request.
Keywords: Knife crime; School Exclusion; Child Criminal Exploitation