Prof Mark Doel draws attention to the remarkable work done by a social worker in one West Midlands comprehensive, while Frank Paice says poverty and inequality are the real issues. Plus Andrew Keeley on how a police officer helped students and parents in his former school
How sad to read that the latest American import is police in our schools (UK police forces deploy 683 officers in schools with some poorer areas targeted, 25 March). How much better it would be to employ social workers. I was fortunate to evaluate the work of a social worker in a large West Midlands comprehensive. Before the social worker was employed, the exclusion rate (full-time equivalent) was over 250 a year. In two years, this was reduced to just six. The social worker operated a universal service, so it was not just the troubled and the troublesome she worked with. Most students saw her by self-referral – there was no stigma attached.
She worked three days a week and was paid for out of the school’s budget. In tandem with the headteacher’s new policies, she worked miracles. You’d think there would be extraordinary interest in this turnaround, wouldn’t you? We publicised the findings, but not even the other large comprehensives in the same county were interested in replicating them.
Prof Mark Doel
Sheffield
