PUPIL REFERRAL UNITS: “ARE THEY EFFECTIVE IN HELPING SCHOOLS WORK WITH CHILDREN WHO HAVE EMOTIONAL AND BEHAVIOURAL DIFFICULTIES?”

Abstract

This article examines the impact of a newly opened pupil referral unit on pupils, teachers and special needs co‐ordinators. It is based on a research project I began after having worked for a term with the senior tutor from this unit. I found our working together very positive and wished to gain a wider picture of the effectiveness of the pupil referral unit service. The article therefore both focuses on the policy behind pupil referral units in my LEA and the perceptions of the service users.

It is widely known that when it comes to supporting pupils who have emotional and behavioural difficulties there is the rhetoric and then there is the reality. Could pupil referral units be the key to bringing rhetoric and reality together or are they simply in existence because something had to be done?

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rowland Hill

I was born in Northern Ireland but since 1987 I have lived in England. My first job was as a social worker, my second as a teacher in a special school for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties, my third as a learning support co‐ordinator in an upper school and at the moment I am one of the new breed of SENCOs in a community school in Basildon, Essex. For the future I want to complete a Doctorate in Education with the OU although my three children (the eldest is nearly four) would probably prefer me to spend the time with them instead of studying.