Children as young as four are being excluded from schools in England in increasing numbers as they struggle to cope in a classroom setting, with many still in nappies or unable to talk fully.
According to the latest government data, 11,695 children aged five and under were given fixed-term exclusions in England in the 2021-22 academic year, which was 11% higher than 2018-19.
In some schools in deprived areas up to 40% of reception children are also now arriving at school not yet potty-trained, the Observer has been told. Experts say many more children are starting school with undiagnosed language and learning difficulties which can lead to behavioural problems.
Charities say cuts to public services mean many are not seen by a health visitor at two and a half as they should be, and the closure of children’s centres has resulted in struggling families falling beneath the radar.
Anne Longfield, the government’s former children’s commissioner, who now chairs the independent Commission on Young Lives, told the Observer: “Anyone who discovers that children of four, five and six are being excluded is in utter shock. It just feels so wrong.”
She described meeting a group of parents in north London whose children had been excluded in the first few years of primary school. “One five-year-old child had been excluded 17 times between Easter and Christmas. The child was then sent to a pupil referral unit where there were no other young children and they had to be put in a room by themselves,” she explained.
Her commission has taken evidence of “huge rises” in children entering reception at four not yet potty-trained. One head she spoke to before the summer said that out of 70 children in reception about 30 were not potty-trained, and about a third were coming into school in pushchairs.
“We’ve been told that many children starting school have speech and language delays because they have had dummies in their mouths for so long over the pandemic and since,” she added.
Longfield argues that a lack of early support for struggling families, combined with undiagnosed special educational needs, has caused an “outbreak” of very young children who can’t cope in a classroom environment.
“These are children with very high needs and real difficulties dealing with social situations in school, who aren’t able to cope with change and can be very physically disruptive and dangerous to themselves and others,” she says.
Jane Harris, chief executive of the charity Speech and Language UK, which published research in September showing that 1.9 million children are behind with talking and understanding words, said that insufficient health visitors meant “loads of children aren’t being seen at two and a half years old as they should be”.
More than half of teachers have told the charity they don’t know how to help children with speech and language difficulties, and Harris says schools that are struggling to recruit and retain teaching assistants because of low pay often don’t have enough staff to give extra support.
“Of course young children are going to feel frustrated if they can’t understand what’s going on at school and if they find it difficult to talk they will really struggle with making friendships,” she said.
The mother of an autistic boy who was suspended from his south London school at the age of six last year after pressing a fire alarm, told the Observer she was “furious”. Speaking anonymously to protect her child she explained that he struggled to communicate and to understand the consequences of his actions. Several of his classmates in reception and year 1 were also suspended in the same term as the head launched a crackdown on discipline.
“How do you get to a situation where a child is being suspended and punished for something to do with their disability?” she said. “Surely multiple very young children being suspended should be a huge red flag?
“We tried to make a joint complaint but some parents were afraid of upsetting the school. It feels like we are always fighting [to get him enough support] and it is absolutely exhausting.”
Suffolk tops the league table for primary school exclusions in England, and more than 400 children aged five and under were temporarily excluded from schools in the county last year.
Jack Abbott, the Labour parliamentary candidate for Ipswich who has been campaigning to end the exclusion of young children, said: “There is a generation of very young children growing up with much less support. We have half as many health visitors in Suffolk as we had three years ago.”
He added: “The children being excluded are far more likely to have SEN [special educational needs] and to be on free school meals. The impact on these vulnerable kids is massive.”
Dr Sarah Martin-Denham, associate professor of care and education at Sunderland University, who has made a series of films with excluded children and their parents, said that schools are often excluding four and five-year-olds to push the local authority to place them somewhere else. But she warns that this may backfire. “There just aren’t enough specialist places at the moment and these are very young children,” she said.
“If your five-year-old child is excluded you feel blamed. Some are frightened to reach out in case it all escalates and their child is excluded permanently. So they just keep their heads down.”
