Be an attention seeking thug, and get looked after more.

That's right, throw even more money at these thugs! They cause more trouble and recieve all the special treatment.

Private companies, voluntary groups and independent schools could educate pupils who have been excluded from schools in England.

The name "pupil referral units" is to be scrapped - and new providers will be invited to raise standards.

The plan calls for earlier intervention - including making efforts to identify problem children in primary school.

Schools Secretary Ed Balls says there must be a "radical transformation" of learning outside mainstream classes.

Mr Balls has set out a root and branch reform of provision for excluded and disruptive pupils - in an attempt to raise the low performance of the current system.

Link

Back in the day we had a unit run by a nun...She got the girls in her tender care down on their knees scrubbing floors so one former inmate told me..I do know that no one wanted to be referred back to her in particular and other units in the 70's and 80's.Sadly under Mrs T they were seen as being too expensive despite their effectiveness(well in Pompey anyway)and many were closed.

The newer units well they work for some but not for all.The trouble is that many of these students should have got one to one education much much earlier in their school lives.It's too late for most 15/16 year olds who are troublesome.

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Surely it's a balancing act. Get to the kids whilst they are young and impressionable, to get them back on the rails, or ignore them and then complain as they become the teenage and adult thugs that really are a problem to society. The issue, at least for me, is not that there are "special measures schools" from public or private sector, but that the special measures schools are given proper licence to instil a sense of responsibility and discipline. That might mean the use of physical labour punishments (as described by Incognitas), something that no doubt many in our society would currently be wringing hands over.