Behaviour and Discipline in Schools

Memorandum submitted by Youth Justice Board for England and Wales

Introduction

1. The Youth Justice Board for England and Wales (YJB) welcomes this inquiry and the opportunity to submit written evidence. We would be pleased to provide any further information that may be of assistance.

Role of the YJB

2. The role of the YJB is to oversee the youth justice system in England and Wales. It works to prevent offending and reoffending by children and young people under the age of 18, and to ensure that custody for them is safe, secure, and addresses the causes of their offending behaviour. The statutory responsibilities of the YJB include:

· advising Ministers on the operation of, and standards for, the youth justice system

· monitoring the performance of the youth justice system

· purchasing places for, and placing, children and young people remanded or sentenced to custody

· identifying and promoting effective practice

· making grants to local authorities and other bodies to support the development of effective practice

· commissioning research and publishing information.

3. While the YJB is responsible for supporting and overseeing the performance of youth justice services including multi-agency Youth Offending Teams and secure estate providers it does not directly manage any of the services.

4. As part of its overarching objectives to prevent offending and reduce reoffending the YJB works with partners to help secure access to employment, education and training for young people, both in the community as well as for those making the transition from custody back into the community. The YJB also provides clear specifications for the delivery of education and training programmes within the secure estate.

Engagement with education and links with the criminal justice system

5. The association between engagement in education, training and employment (ETE) and offending behaviour is widely recognised. YJB data for 2008/09 found that 28% [1] of all young offenders in the youth justice cohort were not engaged in suitable education, training or employment. Within this cohort ETE engagement for young people on custodial sentences is on average 15% lower than their peers on community orders. Information gathered from Youth Offending Team (YOT) assessments of young people clearly indicates that there are established links between the educational achievement, inclusion and ability of young people in the youth justice system and their risk o f offending and re-offending. A n audit of young people involved with YOTs published in 2003 found that of the young people :

§ 25% had S pecial E ducational N eeds (60% of which with statements)

§ 42% currently or previously experienced school exclusion

§ 41% were regularly truanting

§ 42% were under achieving at school

§ 80% of the custodial cohort did not have the skills for employment

Furthermore, a study in th e North East with the region s YOTs showed that over 40% of young offenders also have an identifiable learning disability or difficulties (2006).

6. Engagement in ETE is proven to reduce the risk of offending and re-offending. Therefore, closer working between education and training providers and youth justice services on engaging young people is likely to reduce offending behaviour.

7. It is therefore important to address the behaviour and attitudes of school age young people before they become extreme and the young person disengages.

8. Tackling disruptive or bad behaviour should be part of a wider comprehensive school management programme, managed in a consistent and transparent way. Teachers need to feel that they have the management’s support when tackling problem behaviour, and should also feel that there are systems in place which they can follow and will be understood by young people.

9. Efforts to identify the underlying reasons behind young people’s behaviour should be maximised so that they can be supported where possible to remain in mainstream education. This support could come from staff within the school, or with the assistance of external agencies to whom the young person and family may already be known – Youth Inclusion Projects, Youth Inclusion Support Panels, children’s services, health organisations etc as appropriate.

Early identification and intervention

10. The YJB favours the early identification of young people with behavioural needs and supports a multi-agency approach to tackling the causes, through working partnerships between schools, YOTs, children’s services, health services, the police and relevant third sector organisations.

11. Within the youth justice system there are a number of effective systems for early intervention when a child may be considered at risk of offending. In relevant cases referral to youth justice prevention services should be considered along with the wider diversionary programmes such as Think Family projects and family intervention services. However this is dependent on schools seeing the long term benefit to the young person, being prepared to put effort into reengaging them, and having effective links with external agencies which can provide targeted support.

12. If these links are properly established and used effectively they would promote awareness of the support available – meaning that parents could seek help when they need it, because they are aware that it exists and how to access it (anecdotally, over 80% of parents with young people in the criminal justice system engage with parenting support voluntarily). Some agencies provide targeted support to the whole family and these are adept at engaging parents and families and supporting them to succeed. Occasionally schools may find it beneficial to refer a young person and their family to such a service when they cannot engage them themselves. The effective development of links to services providing targeted support, where they are available, can go a long way to ensuring that young people and their families are engaged successfully.

13. In terms of early identification, the YJB advocates targeted, evidence-based prevention programmes such as Youth Inclusion and Support Panels (YISPs) and Youth Inclusion Programmes (YIPs) to help prevent young people entering the youth justice system and to help support their engagement with mainstream education. These programmes are based on a risk and protective factor model that recognises poor educational attendance and attainment as particularly strong risk factors related to a raised likelihood of offending.

14. YIPs are tailor-made early prevention programmes for 8 to 17-year-olds who are at high risk of involvement in crime or anti-social behaviour. Young people on the YIP are identified through a number of different agencies, including the YOT, police, children and family services, local education authorities, schools, neighbourhood wardens and anti-social behaviour teams. YIPs have a number of key aims including to increase access for engaged young people to mainstream and specialist services, especially in relation to education, training and employment.

15. Where appropriate YJB supports referrals being considered from schools to prevention programmes and children and families services before considering exclusion, as part of an overall support package provided to the child and/or their family in order to prevent their total disengagement with education.

Avoiding the unnecessary criminalisation of children and young people

16. The Association of Chief Police Officers has recently amended its ‘writing up’ rules in relation to incidents in schools. This has allowed schools more leeway in determining how to handle incidents without the formal intervention of the police, and has allowed some schools to develop effective restorative justice protocols and practices. Where used restorative processes have proved to be a very successful means of resolving conflict, as they hold young people to account for their behaviour, and allow them to address the harm they have caused directly with the ‘victim’ or ‘victims’ of their behaviour. However, this approach is only effective when it is applied consistently across the school and in agreement with all the relevant parties.

The future of education provision

17. It is important that where schools are given greater autonomy, this does not compromise their ability to work with other local services to tackle the causes and consequences of poor behaviour. Safer Schools Partnerships have been a particularly good example of how schools and other local services such as the police work closely together to improve behaviour and attendance, reduce crime and antisocial behaviour within the school and its neighbourhood and improve community cohesion.

18. We need to ensure that alongside increasing autonomy efforts are maintained by schools to work constructively with the most disruptive and disadvantaged pupils to avoid disengagement and exclusion where possible. The proposed pupil premium may help with this but careful consideration needs to be given to how these new measures will impact on behavioural issues within the school and local neighbourhood.

19. When considering alternative provision and the support that young people with behavioural problems receive it is important that we change the perceptions to ensure that it does not operate on a ‘no way back’ principle. All local schools need to engage with the available alternative education providers with the expectation that young people will be re-integrated back into mainstream provision at the earliest opportunity.

Special Educational Needs

20. It is particularly important to consider young people with special educational needs. Significant numbers of young people with special educational needs can end up in alternative provision and in turn involved in the criminal justice system, when their needs have either not been identified properly, or they have not been met appropriately in mainstream provision. Subject to the forthcoming Green Paper on SEN, it is imperative that special educational needs are identified early and managed appropriately. This means that young people who have SEN are given support to encourage and facilitate their learning.

21. When a young person’s SEN goes undiagnosed or unsupported they are at risk of becoming disengaged and potentially disruptive. Therefore it is important to acknowledge their enhanced needs as part of the behaviour management policy – for example young people with autistic spectrum disorders or speech and language difficulties may need to have their behaviour managed separately, but in line with the behaviour management policy of the school.

New duties under the Apprenticeships Act

22. The Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009, has made local authorities responsible for ensuring the education outcomes of young people detained in secure accommodation (particularly where they have special educational needs) and especially upon their release from custody. Schools will play an important part in ensuring these post custodial responsibilities are met.

23. We now have the opportunity to influence outcomes for young people by ensuring that proper mechanisms are in place to allow young people leaving custody to have a place in an educational establishment as soon as they are released. This requires timely planning and effective links between the local authority (that has a duty to ensure the education outcomes) and the schools which can provide them.

Conclusion

24. The YJB’s objectives are working with partners to achieve a continuing reduction in first time entrants to the youth justice system; a continuing reduction in the frequency and seriousness of reoffending; and improving victim and public confidence in the youth justice system.

25. The effective management of behaviour of young people though schools and effective partnership working with external organisations is in everyone’s interests - improved outcomes for children mean that there should be fewer young people entering the criminal justice system, which will also have an effect on the adult criminal justice system and would reduce the occurrence of intergenerational problems.

26. Along with this, proper engagement of young people through school partnerships, consistent behaviour management and appropriate referral will have a more immediate positive effect on incidences of anti-social behaviour and problems within the community as well as within the school environment.

27. However, these problems cannot be tackled in isolation – it is rare that a child exhibits problematic behaviour without there being some underlying contributory factors. While recognising fully that schools have to be able to respond to problem behaviour, by having proper systems in place to where appropriate can be used to intervene early and support young people through their problem behaviour, outcomes for all will be improved. Successful intervention can potentially have a very long term impact.

September 2010