11th September 2017 1:00
By Blue Tutors
London’s St Olave’s school hit news headlines last week after several parents threatened to bring legal action against the school for excluding their children. This and now a number of other schools have been challenged over whether it is illegal to prevent students from moving on to the second year of their A levels based on their AS grades.
St Olave’s is one of the top performing schools in the country and admission is selective, contingent on achieving excellent marks. The disagreement started after the school informed students who were already admitted to the school for their first year of A level, lower sixth, that they cannot continue to the second year of sixth form and complete their A levels if they fail to achieve the standard in the first year. At St Olave’s, students must attain a B or above in three of four AS levels in order to be allowed to progress on to their second year. This year 16 students were withdrawn from their second year of study based on their internal end of year exam marks. Others were put onto academic probation, signing an agreement that if their marks did not improve to a B, the school could withdraw them from examinations at the end of the year.
Parents have sought legal action against the school as a result; the lawyers have started judicial review proceedings, claiming that his is a form of exclusion or expulsion, and that the law states that students cannot be banned from the school based on their academic progress. In the days following the suit’s media coverage, the action has been expanded to several other schools’ governing bodies and local authorities as parents have come forward showing the same behaviour from other schools.
The schools however argue that this is a condition of entry or admission to the second year and not an exclusion. In this case, like lower sixth, there is an academic requirement for admission which has always been its policy and students who have attended their first year are effectively reapplying for entry to the second. Schools argue the need to be able to retain “professional judgement” as to whether a qualification is suitable for a student, however others feel that this is simply a way of ensuring their league table rankings by eliminating those students who are not achieving top grades. Pupils at the St Olave’s, for example, achieve 96% B or above at A level and they wish to retain this statistic. This is well above the national average and puts them at the very top of the league tables.
Ultimately, faced with legal challenge and negative media attention, the flagship school has “reviewed” its policy and allowed the 16 students in question to return to the school, although it is not clear under which conditions or whether this is a permanent change. The Department of Education was clear on its stance, saying “All schools have a responsibility to provide a high-quality education to every pupil and ensure there is no limit to their potential. Students enrolled in a sixth form cannot be removed because of academic ability.”
Many now feel that these super-selective grammar schools are no longer putting student needs first. Exclusion from school for one C grade is not in the best interest of any child, and this comes after findings earlier in the year linking school exclusions to long-term mental health problems. Former governors and parents have called for a full enquiry into the into the school to restore confidence, saying that withdrawing this potentially illegal policy is not enough. Whatever happens with the inquiry, priorities clearly need to be redressed.