The article summary is written in the right-hand column on the last page. Here it’s written again so you can see at a glance how the article has been summarised.
In the article, ‘Excluded by the system’, the writer starts off by telling us about a 12-year-old boy who attends school for only three hours a day, because the school can’t provide the support teacher he needs. He would disrupt classes without such support. The writer feels that for the teachers, there are no easy answers, but that it’s not fair on the boy. The writer feels that the current system is failing the school, the boy and society. The writer quotes the boy’s mother who says that he is learning nothing. The writer goes on to claim that this boy is only one of many in the same situation – difficult to handle. He claims that schools use this system because it means they don’t have to exclude pupils.
The writer feels that there are two options for pupils in this situation – special schools or special units in existing schools. The Scottish Executive favours the special unit model, but isn’t funding it properly. Partly because of a lack of appropriate funding, and because schools are trying to cut exclusion figures, the number of what the author refers to as ‘halfway-house children’ who are neither excluded nor being educated will grow.
