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The Commons Education Select Committee today held its second evidence��session for its inquiry into��alternative provision.

Here are eight key points that came out of the hearing, which fielded campaigners, academics and a headteacher.

1. Internal inclusion units can be ‘dumping grounds’
   Internal��units within schools for children having difficulty in mainstream lessons��can be misused, an academic told the committee. Val Gillies, professor of social policy  and criminology at the University of Westminster, said that “unless there is a very clearly defined objective for these units, they can end up as a dumping ground for difficult, challenging pupils”.��She added that three schools she had researched had policies in place stating that pupils should only be in such units for four-to-six weeks, but “in reality young people stayed in there for far longer; in one school they were there for years. In fact, young people would come in from primary schools and never touch��the mainstream. They went straight to the units.”
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2. Financial incentives to exclude pupils
   Matthew Dodd, co-coordinator and policy adviser for the Special Educational Consortium, raised concerns that the funding system gives schools a perverse incentive to exclude children��because the costs associated with them transfer to local authorities.��He said: “There is a big issue about these blocks of funding, and [about]��where the incentives are between the schools block and the high-needs block.”
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3. ‘Not enough scrutiny’ of decisions is affecting children
   Dodd said there was not enough scrutiny “at all levels”, including��decisions to exclude children or��put��them in a particular pupil-referral unit, as well as about how children who have been excluded can re-enter mainstream education. He called for research into how such decisions are made.
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4. There is not enough��information about how internal units perform
   Committee chair Robert Halfon asked whether regulator Ofsted should measure the success of��internal behaviour units for pupils. Gillies called for a measure of how many such units exist, and added: “We have no idea what their progress is. There are no records kept anywhere, so that would be quite important.”
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5. Progress 8 ‘increases the incentive to exclude children’
   The committee heard renewed concerns that the new Progress 8 and Attainment 8 accountability measures increased the incentive for more exclusions because of the weighting if a child fails.��Asked whether these measures did give schools an added motive for removing children from their rolls,��Drew Povey, headteacher of Harrop Fold School, answered: “Yes, absolutely it does. If you have a student that’s not going to reach levels of progress for a myriad of different reasons, you will see significant impact on the school’s overall scores.”
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6. Support for a bill of rights for parents
   Witnesses supported calls from Halfon for a ‘bill of rights’ that would tell parents what the procedures were for excluding pupils, while still allowing headteachers to exclude.��Dodd told MPs that “anything that sets out very clearly what rights parents have, what rights children have, would be welcome”, while Gillies said such a bill of rights, together with advocacy support, would help prevent the relationship between parents and teachers breaking down.
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7. Zero-tolerance policies ‘could be illegal’
   Zero-tolerance behaviour policies that do not include “reasonable adjustments” for pupils with disabilities could be illegal, Dodd told MPs. Answering a question from Labour MP Emma Hardy, he added that “the rigidity of the new curriculum is a major barrier to inclusive teaching”.
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8. Concerns about ‘completely unregulated’ system for alternative-provision��referrals
   Dodd contrasted the structured system in place to support children with SEND, which includes��education, health and care plans��and an appeals process, with what he said was a lack of regulation about how pupils are referred to alternative provision.��He said: “We don’t see why we have a very tightly regulated system that many children go through, and a completely unregulated system of referrals that another group of children go through.”