A "relatively high number" of children with special needs and disabilities are being excluded from primary schools in Richmond.

At this week's Education and Children's Services Committee on Monday, November 2, councillors received an annual report from the Kingston and Richmond Safeguarding Children partnership.

It said: "We are worried that we have found relatively high numbers of children with EHCPs (education, health and care plans) excluded from primary school in Richmond, which can create an unsettled journey into secondary school.

"We plan Independent Scrutiny and an audit theme of the "Journey to School Exclusion" in the autumn 2020 during the new financial year to look more closely at these children's needs."

Safeguarding partnership professional advisor Elisabeth Major said eight primary aged children received 21 fixed-term exclusions in the borough in 2019/20.

Of that, one child from Year 2 had nine fixed-term exclusions before he went to a different placement.

These figures were "much in line with national trends," she said. "I guess for primary years it is perhaps something in those early years of actually understanding that child's educational needs and working out what would be the best setting for that child."

Director of children's services Ian Dodds said: "It's our job to make sure the child is receiving the right level of support from the right teacher or support staff in the right school."

Noting the report, he added: "Sometimes it takes us some time to achieve that which is why you get that accumulation of fixed-term exclusions, which are often for very short periods, one or two days.

"But they are not good for the child and we need to make sure they are in the right provision for them with the right level of support.

"I think the other thing that would be important to say is the Safeguarding Children Partnership is doing some very focussed work around exclusions, which will help us to better understand that picture."

A report on school exclusions will be produced in the early New Year, as well as a conference and learning event.

There is also a task and finish group looking into "innovative practice to prevent school exclusions in both primary and secondary arenas," as well as work with local school governors.

Looked After Children

The report also noted that 7.8% of the borough's Looked After Children had one or more fixed term exclusions in 2019-20 – there were none for the last several years.

Although there were no permanent exclusions, these fixed-term exclusions came to 29.5 days in total.

Nine Looked After Children in Richmond had at least one fixed term exclusion.

The report added that five were not on a school roll or missing education and two had less than 25 hours of education per week – which is the statutory minimum. It concluded that "this needs to get better".

In total, in 2019-20, there were 384 fixed term and nine permanent exclusions for Richmond pupils, but this data does not include independent schools, nor managed moves between schools; and it should be noted that the spring term to March 2020 was impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.