School system
There are significant problems with our school system and increasing numbers of children are not coping. The right to education and ‘safeguarding’ cannot justify approaches which are harmful to children or which ignore rights to privacy and for children to be heard, or not to be subject to degrading or inhumane treatment.
Children’s human rights must be at the heart of their education yet the current culture is a far cry from the child-led, supportive approach outlined as part of Rights of the Child.
“Children do not lose their human rights by virtue of passing through the school gates. Thus, for example, education must be provided in a way that respects the inherent dignity of the child and enables the child to express his or her views freely…and to participate in school life.”
Committee on the Rights of the Child
GENERAL COMMENT NO. 1, Aims of education
[allegations include]”…first years being “screamed at” by senior leaders and five accounts of secondary-age pupils with no prior incontinence issues soiling themselves, or menstruating through their uniforms, because they were not allowed to go to the toilet or were too scared to ask.”
Discipline
Restraint, isolation and exclusion are used widely across English schools, including in primary schools, despite the evidence that they are harmful practices and that restraint can be life threatening.
We know that marginalised children are subjected to these practices at a higher rate and also that these children suffer even greater negative impact as a result than others.
“When we have children as young as five being excluded from primary school then clearly something isn’t working.”
Vanessa Longley, chief executive of Chance UK
Quoted in Children and Young People Now: Children with SEND disproportionately excluded from primary school, research finds (2024)
Rights report on UK
“take legislative measures to explicitly prohibit without exception the use of solitary confinement, isolation, seclusion and restraint as disciplinary measures in schools and alternative care and health settings”
Committee on the Rights of the Child
Concluding observations on the combined sixth and seventh reports of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (2023)
Rights report on UK
“…monitor the use of exclusions and ensure that they are prohibited in primary schools and used in secondary schools only as a measure of last resort”
Committee on the Rights of the Child
Concluding observations on the combined sixth and seventh reports of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (2023)
Restraint and isolation
Exclusion
Police in schools
Research shows that police in schools results in signficant problems including children being criminalised for very minor incidents. Figures obtained by Runnymead show a 43% rise on numbers of officers in schools from the previous year with plans to increase further.
Police in schools
Rights report on UK
“…adopt a child rights-based approach to addressing violence or other disturbances in schools, including by prohibiting the presence of police in schools”
Committee on the Rights of the Child
Concluding observations on the combined sixth and seventh reports of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (2023)
Monitoring
“The National Pupil Database is one of the richest education datasets in the world…”
UK Government
National Pupil Database
The National Pupil Database pulls together huge amounts of information about children in the state school system without children or their families consent.
Guidance states that data can be shared “for the purpose of promoting the education or wellbeing of children in England”. This has included information shared with estate agents for the purposes of showing best school areas, and for the purposes of age verifying prospective gamblers.
“…children are subjected to constant monitoring and scrutiny through attainment tracking, behaviour charts and attendance profiles, none of which they have consented to. They are positioned as academic commodities, with success and attendance prioritised above all else, regardless of the toll on their mental health.”
“Capita One own a database operating within schools containing the personal details of around 8 million children…Capita One even hire photographers to capture images of the children for their database, which are offered for sale to parents before being quietly uploaded to the system.”
Professors Val Gillies, Rosalind Edwards and Dr Nicola Horsley
Challenging the politics of early intervention
Monitoring changes school
We take for granted that children across the country learn the same things, in the same way, and that this must be measured.
Yet this model is not the only possible model of education and it has profound consequences. Education has become machine-like rather than being child-led and has moved away from a human rights respecting approach.
The drive for ‘AI’ solutions to problems of chronic underfunding threatens to amplify this further.
Data demands: the cost is play, agency and voice of the child
Doesn’t fit needs
In conjunction with this the numbers of children who cannot thrive – nor sometimes even get by – within this has grown. There have been large increases in the numbers of children needing support for ‘special educational needs and disabilities’ as well as growing numbers opting to provide education for their children outside of the school system. The focus of public and political discussion is of these children and their families as a problem, rather than listening to the growing number of voices calling for change.
Barriers to school
Concerns over the number of school days being missed has resulted in a wide range of punitive state measures and sharing of information about children. Controversial live tracking has been introduced, parents and carers face fines and prosecution if their child misses school and police and social services involvement has been increased.
Children and their families are viewed as the problem. Yet this ignores what children and their families – and extensive research – tells us about their experience and the many barriers they face both in school and more widely.
Attendance