Government plans to scrap the panels that hear pupils' and parents' appeals against school exclusions has been condemned for stripping away a pupils' fundamental right.

Education and Children's Bill
The Coalition Government have indicated that this unpopular move will be introduced through in an Education and Children's Bill due to start its passage through parliament in the autumn.

‘The proposal is definitely bad news it goes against the basic rights that every child should have,'Paul Ifayomi-Grant, vice chair and co-founder of the NBFE (Nottingham Black Families in Education) advocacy service told Black Mental Health UK.

'The appeals process is a quasi judicial process and offers the only independent forum where the parents and child can put forward their case.

If a child can be summarily excluded then there must be a system in place where this can be thoroughly assessed and repealed where a mistake has been made as teachers are not infallible,' Ifayomi-Grant added.

Figures published last year by the Department for Children, Schools and Families show exclusion rates are highest among black children. They are three times more likely to be permanently excluded or suspended than their white counterparts,  in spite of a drop in the overall rate of pupil suspension, which is down from 5.66% for 2006/07 to 5.14% in 2007/08.

Data also shows that the disproportionate rate of exclusion of black children occurs irrespective of socio-economic context of the school, its performance, or its educational effectiveness.

Incompetence & stereotyping

A recent report by the BBC has brought to light that fact that there are currently 17,000 incompetent teachers who continue to work in Britain's schools .  

This comes on the back of a report by the Guardian newspaper which exposed how black pupils are being routinely marked down by teachers who are unconsciously stereotyping them. This has confirmed many of the long standing concerns educationalists from the community have voiced over the treatment of black children by the school system.

The enduring problems within Briton's education system make it clear that removing safeguards against head teachers' powers who may wrongly exclude a child from school are ill thought through and are likely to result in unecessry disruption to the educational career of the hundreds of children.

‘Removing the right to appeal against exclusion will be detrimental for our communities, it is a policy that needs to be reviewed. School exclusions among black children is at an unacceptable level, I have mentored kids have been affected by this; it has been very traumatising for them.  Not only do they often have to deal with the injustice of being excluded from school on often the flimsiest of reasons, but may have a hard time getting into another decent school to be able to carry on with their education,' a community activist told Black Mental Health UK.

Tory policy

Getting rid of the independent three or five person panels that hear pupils and parents appeals against exclusion decision has been a Tory policy for many years now.  

Ironically the appeals panels were set up by the Conservatives in 1986. Currently, they ensure that when a head makes the decision to permanently exclude a pupil and the parents are concerned or disagree with the decision, they are given the right to appeal.

The panel is chaired by a lay person who has not worked in school but may be legally qualified and at least one former head teacher from another school.

Educationalists have observed that the way in which black children are pathologised by their teachers has resulted in exclusion rates  reaching an all time high among this group.

Primary school children forced to contend school exclusion

NBFE was established in 1998 to deal with the growing demand from parents and pupils appealing against school exclusions. The only agency of its kind in this part of the country,

NBFE serves not only the city of Nottingham but the surrounding shire counties as well.

‘This agency serves not only Nottingham city but also the surrounding counties and get a lot of referrals, far more cases than our we are required to do in our service level agreement.

One of the most disturbing trends we have seen in this work is the drop in age of people who are seeking help with appealing against exclusions.  We have had parents with children from primary schools aged seven and eight looking for help on this issue,' Ifayom-Grant said.

He says that the removing the appeals process will lead to many more exclusions with potentially devastating consequences for the community as a whole.

‘We know that school governors work hand in hand with the head teachers and so there is usually no chance of getting them to overturn these decisions. The only chance a child has of getting an independent hearing is through the independent appeals panel. If this government does scrap it will encourage head teachers to exclude more children,' Ifayomi-Grant said.