• EVERYONE wants to reduce exclusions and to support children who get into trouble at school and often face complex emotional and behavioural problems. Misleading and inaccurate reporting doesn’t help, (Camden to probe link between school exclusions and knife crime, February 21).

Misleading because recent figures show a sharp fall in both permanent and fixed-term exclusions in the 2018 autumn term, figures that were given to the scrutiny committee.

Inaccurate because Camden secondary schools are, in fact, performing well above the national average, not below average as reported.

Our schools are ranked 44th and 46th out of 152 local authorities for progress and attainment respectively.

Cllr Samata Khatoon will bring important insights to the discussion of exclusions, but it would be silly if the scrutiny panel duplicated the work of the Youth Safety Taskforce which is already looking at the relationship between knife crime and exclusions.

That is why it is important to define the scope of the panel carefully, where it can add most value and the scrutiny committee is now beginning this detailed work.

CLLR ANGELA MASON
Cabinet Member for Best Start in Life