Barnsley SENDIASS
The Department for Education (DfE) recognise that children with SEND (and especially those who haven't been identified) are more likely to be excluded from school. It's also easy to see that these groups of children are more likely to receive sanctions in school, such as detentions.
Barnsley has a high number of exclusions when compared to the national average.
What to do if your child is having problems
The DfE allows schools to exclude or sanction a pupil for poor behaviour. If this happens often, the DfE expects schools to consider whether the sanction is having an effect to modify and improve this poor behaviour.
If your child is receiving a significant number of sanctions or exclusions, something isn't working and the DfE expects schools to be proactive in understanding why.
You should contact the school's SENCO (SEN coordinator) and ask for a meeting to discuss your concerns. Schools must consider whether there are any underlying reasons or causes. This could be that your child has an unidentified special educational need.
Disability discrimination
The Equality Act 2010 defines a disability as a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term negative effect on your ability to do normal daily activities. There's no list of conditions and no diagnosis needed.
If any organisation treats someone differently because of SEND, there's a risk they're discriminating against them or their family. This is very serious.
A school can't simply state it didn’t know that a child or young person might have a difficulty. A child or young person might find it difficult to follow the expectations, rules or policies, and may act-out, refuse to do work or appear rude.
The school must make 'reasonable adjustments' to their criteria, policies and practice for this.