EXCLUSION FROM PRIMARY SCHOOL: CHILDREN ‘IN NEED’ AND CHILDREN WITH ‘SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEED’

Abstract

The article utilises evidence from a national research project focusing on exclusion from primary school to discuss the issue of how we begin to conceptualise the needs underlying the behaviour of many of these children. The research was funded by the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) over a two year period, 1993‐1995. Reference is made to some limited follow‐up work on 65 children who were originally excluded from primary school in the Autumn term of 1993. The article argues that the evidence about children excluded from primary school illustrates that they should be viewed primarily as children with special educational needs and/or children ‘in need’ and therefore entitled to the support and protection from legislation which recognises these needs, rather than viewed as a discipline problem which requires appropriate sanctions, one of which is exclusion from school.

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Notes on contributors

Carol Hayden

Carol Hayden is Senior Research Officer at the SSRIU (Social Services Research and Information Unit) at the University of Portsmouth, where she has worked since 1989. Prior to this time she was a teacher in mainstream education for ten years. She was the main researcher on the ESRC project and has published extensively on the findings from this project, including a book entitled Children Excluded from School. Debates, Evidence, Responses (Open University Press, 1997).