By Joe Locker, Local Democracy Reporter
Ten new places for young children who have been excluded or are at risk of being excluded from schools in Nottingham will be created in a bid to meet rising demand.
Nottingham City Council says the rates of permanent exclusion for primary school pupils “has grown significantly in recent years”.
During the 2021/22 academic year at Key Stage 2, which covers children aged between seven to eleven, exclusions increased by 31 per cent.
However, there are only a handful of alternative places for Key Stage 2 pupils to go to in Nottingham and none at all at Key Stage 1.
While the authority has submitted an application for a new Alternative Provision school, which would be run by the Raleigh Education Trust and deliver 100 new places, this scheme is at least “several years away”.
Instead 10 temporary places are being created at the Hospital and Home Education Learning Centre (HHELC), at the Sherwood Education Centre, for a two year period beginning April 1.
The centre has been chosen as the location because learning difficulties and medical needs are often linked to a child being excluded.
“Pupils with profound and multiple learning difficulties and medical needs already face significant barriers to access education when compared to their non-disabled peers,” Schools Forum documents say.
“Pupils with complex medical needs can face lengthy stays in hospital when picking up relatively minor infections, and on occasions, the complexity of their needs mean that picking up infections and bugs, can also pose a risk to life.
“Establishing a resource for outreach support for this vulnerable cohort will ensure they continue to receive an education during these extenuating situations.”
The annual cost for each child’s placement for the provision is £12,987.
The council says this is “significantly cheaper” than the annual cost per year of a child when they have been permanently excluded from school.
Meanwhile, the cost of staffing per year is just over £137,000.
The places will require a full-time teacher, whose basic pay will be over £47,000, two teaching assistants on £27,800 and a teaching assistant for outreach activities.
A total of £174,000 for the extra places will come from council High Needs budgets, paid for through an underspend in this area.
“HHELC will be able to support 10 primary aged children identified as at risk of
permanent exclusion,” documents add.
“Placements will be a combination of full-time and part-time placements and where the children attend part-time, they will be supported by HHELC in their school whilst they are there.
“This arrangement is already being trialled successfully with one primary school in the city.
“The provision will be in HHELC’s Sherwood site and will be an interim, early
intervention model that aims to support schools to allow the child to be reintegrated back to their mainstream school.”
The spending on the scheme has been recommended for approval at a Schools Forum meeting on January 16.
