Guest post by Dr Craig Johnston, Senior Lecturer-Criminology, University of the West of England (UWE) Bristol
SNJ Intro: We’ve featured alternative provision and its different types quite a few times on SNJ, and we have another post from AP expert Sarah Johnson coming up too. But today, we hear from Dr Craig Johnston, senior lecturer in Criminology at the University of the West of England (UWE) Bristol who has spent many years researching AP.
Below is a basic graph with a top-level snapshot of this year’s exclusion figures of all state schools (primary, secondary, special and Y1 and younger) is below. If the Government goes ahead with any rumoured plans to slash EHCPs in mainstream, we predict many more children will be ending up in alternative provision, either as a result of, or to avoid exclusion, or out of education altogether.
Who should be in Alternative Provision? by Dr Craig Johnston, Senior Lecturer-Criminology, University of the West of England (UWE) Bristol
When I started researching Alternative Provisions (AP) some 20 years ago, or ‘satellite’ programmes (read that as AP in today’s policy language), I didn’t bank on it being a particularly ‘normal’ educational experience. Inspired by years of working in and out of different forms of APs or alternative learning economies, I wanted to write something that would connect with the young lives of those navigating exclusion and segregation alongside what lies ahead in terms of employment and future relationships.
And, so, I decided to spend a year with pupils in two AP classrooms, predominantly catering for young disabled people from working-class backgrounds and with various physical and mental health conditions. That’s an indication that the system did then, and still does now, separate children based on difference.
The result of this research was a vast and varied catalogue of social segregation, separation from friends and questionable exclusions: from stories about microaggressions and bullying, among some ‘good’ work by dedicated staff and ‘hopeful’ experiences in spaces where they should have found perhaps more freedom (and less judgment) when using their own agency.
Endless Forms of Alternative Provisions Emerging
AP in England, in its seemingly endless forms, has since increased across the board; thousands of children, some as young as four, are now being educated in alternative forms of education. I have visited APs in parks and church halls, sat with children while they learned online, or dropped children off in separate buildings at school.
I didn’t know it then, but under current policy, all of these spaces have become APs. They’re now filling the gaps of various services long lost to austerity, catering to children cut loose by increased testing regimes in schools, or at the sharp end of the freedoms given to academy schools.
Alternative Provision has been described as ‘necessary’, ‘lifesaving’ and ‘inspirational’. Three words I have noted from a cursory glance at LinkedIn as I sit here writing this blog. Upon reflection, are these the signs of future educational systems for children, or perhaps the final stages of a mainstream education system no longer fit for purpose for thousands of SEND children, especially after the lamentations from politicians and media that the SEND system is “broken”?
Alternative Provision Subsystems are Nothing New
Alternative Provision subsystems are nothing new. They have been largely serving current political purposes at any given time in history. With financial pressures on state schools and dissatisfaction with expensive, private sector APs, bigger questions are indeed being asked about the ‘need’ for more ‘inclusive’ settings within mainstream schools or more accountability for those shuttled in and out of a variety of provisions.
In some previous work I undertook with Professor Sally Tomlinson (Joining the Dots published in FORUM 66, 1 (2024)), we were keen to note that much of the recent research in this ‘new’ field of enquiry has failed to reflect on the English mass state education system. It’s a system developed over 150 years, and has always created “subsystems” for predominantly disadvantaged children who would not, or could not, function in mainstream schools.
Beyond Subsystems of Education
“A second schooling tier seems to be developing and normalising, especially for those who have little choice over their learning or who they learn with.”
Given the continuing direction of travel over the last decade in special and alternative schooling, our current work, Joining the Dots Part 2, notes with concern that more recent English policies have been, and will move beyond, creating “subsystems”. A second schooling tier seems to be developing and normalising, especially for those who have little choice over their learning or who they learn with.
Growing numbers of practitioners are likely to be employed in this second schooling tier, without, it seems, the same funding, resources, accountability or professional teaching standards and training that is given to or expected in mainstream classrooms. The ‘clients’ of this second system—which may or may not be called AP—will still largely be composed, as previously, of mostly male children from working-class homes and marginalised communities, and those with SEND. This trend is seen both in the UK and around the world. These children are increasingly (and have always been) seen as statistics and stereotypes by those in power; reduced to political pawns at the time of government change.
Removal of pupils under the guise of inclusion
When politicians and the media say ‘the system is broken’ we hear about it in terms of how much these children are costing the country. This isn’t just rhetoric. In the space of a few years, policy has redrawn inclusion several times, with little or no evidence about the effectiveness of the very spaces rebranded as ‘inclusive.’
For example, the last government reworked and redrew an amorphous picture of AP; most notably, as vital to alleviate new ‘social ills’ and/or endless ‘needs’ that seemingly existed in and beyond the classroom. There was little knowledge of AP, outside of the better recognised Pupil Referral units (previously Borstals). Until 2019, most reports into this sector were largely critical of what they found.
Thrust into policy, alternative provision has also become a growing market opportunity. On many levels, the system is indeed ‘broken’, but as Professor Tomlinson has argued for decades, the second system of APs may also be doing the work it was (unintentionally, perhaps) intended to do. That is, to remove from mainstream classrooms children variously regarded as disruptive, disabled and “defective”, but under different or additional labels to the past, so the “normal” schools can carry on teaching “normal” children without making changes to existing provisions.
Our Research into “second-tier” schooling
In Joining the Dots Part 2, Professor Tomlinson and I examine in detail how these systems have developed into a second schooling tier, and how efforts to link SEND and AP for some children are working (or are intended to work) under the Labour government. In the second part of this work, regardless of the direction of policy, we aim to clarify that a “reframing” of particular and separate forms of support has had detrimental effects on children who are already disadvantaged by the education system. This remains true despite a commitment by successive governments to provide a more ‘inclusive’ education system.
So, then, what is the future for growing numbers of pupils attending a “second-tier” (AP) system? What second system children today have in common with those I studied 20 years ago, is that they’ll exist in liminal (transitional) spaces and places, defined by a continued emphasis on their ‘needs’ and differences. As long as this continues, the ‘needs’ of the system, not the child, will predominate.
There is power in being able to question the system, and those gaining from it, and in seeing a child as an individual human, rather than a series of needs or differences: a child often shuttled and shoved by political and professional forces.
What does this mean for Inclusion?
The only way to create a fully inclusive system for all young disabled people is to recognise them as equal, no less nuanced or less worthy than anyone else. Perhaps that’s the real reason to shine a spotlight on AP and SEND. Young disabled people are treated as human in those spaces: not for what they “take” from schools, but all that they offer up. Despite this, without the same resources that other ‘normal’ children experience, all this admirable work in APs may simply amount to new forms of segregation. You do not need to delve too deeply into the history books to see those consequences of that.
Our research concludes that although current (and future) policy suggests there will be more ‘inclusion’ of children with additional needs, our concern is that AP does little to redress the fact that, 50 years after Warnock, we are still failing to deliver a fully inclusive learning experience for some children.
Without a significant and sustained push for such an education system, many children and young people will be denied critical resources well into the future, simply because of who they are or where they were born. These put the education and life outcomes of another generation of pupils at risk. Until there is more attention to reform of the mainstream schooling system, the dots will never be joined.
Joining the Dots Part 2 will be released in July 2025 and was written with Prof Sally Tomlinson.
About Dr Craig Johnston
Dr Craig Johnston’s interests lie in youth justice issues, alternative provision and school exclusion. His published work in those areas held a rating of world leading in REF 2021. Craig has over 30 years’ experience in the fields of Youth Justice, Psychology, Education, Social Work and Health in the UK and USA. Craig has been researching APs for over 20 years – initially, when he noted patterns of marginalisation and opportunity that some pupils experienced at a college in East London. Craig was himself excluded from school and attended a sports-based provision.
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Also Read:
- Government responds to our Save SEND Legal Rights Petition—but misses the point entirely
- Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill: Protecting children or punishing parents?
- How our alternative provision schools manage zero exclusions: We never give up
- Alternative Provision, SEND, and Inclusion: Should AP even exist in an inclusive system?
- Too many children arrive in AP with no needs assessment—schools need to be more curious about the “why”
- Beyond EHCPs: Why Inclusion Needs More Than a Document
- The Unacceptable Truth: 20 SEND legal rights at risk from the Government’s SEND reforms
- How health and family support systems are failing children starting school
- WEBINAR RECORDING! The implications for children’s legal rights to EHCPs and EOTAS of the Government’s SEND proposals
- When things go right: Shining a light on SEND Practitioners making a positive impact [Giveaway!]
- From suspicion to support: why the Government’s child protection reforms matter for disabled children
- Have your say on the future of transport for disabled children and young people
- Unison voices major concerns over SEND reform health plans for sick and disabled children out of school in the EOTAS consultation
- Top Tips for the EOTAS & EHCP consultation: Protect your child’s rights to statutory SEND support
- Navigating constraints: Why a former PCF chair thinks the current model is missing the mark for families
- Dear Secretary of State for Education, Lucy Powell: an Open Letter from Special Needs Jungle and SEND legal charity SOS!SEN
- Research: Disabled young people define inclusive education as “learning in the place that’s right for them”
What kind of government is “bold” enough to scrap statutory EHCPs from vulnerable children?May 16, 2025
The SEND reforms in the Schools White Paper reveal rights given, and rights stripped awayFebruary 24, 2026
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- The Unacceptable Truth: 20 SEND legal rights at risk from the Government’s SEND reforms - September 9, 2026
- WEBINAR RECORDING! The implications for children’s legal rights to EHCPs and EOTAS of the Government’s SEND proposals - September 3, 2026
- From suspicion to support: why the Government’s child protection reforms matter for disabled children - August 28, 2026
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