A la Recherche du Temps Perdu: Case-study Evidence from Off-site and Pupil Referral Units

Recent changes in provision for children who have been excluded from school have involved the establishment of Pupil Referral Units (PRUs). This paper proposes that many of the difficulties which face both teachers and young people working in PRUs are replicating problems that have traditionally existed in segregated education. Using the views of young people who have been excluded from school and those of their teachers it notes the similarities between current provision and the ‘off-site units’ for so-called disruptive children of the 1970s and 1980s. What results, it is argued, represents an often well-meaning but hopelessly inadequate response to the needs of these children.