Informal Exclusion and Disability in SA Schools: Why "Take-Homes" Are Not Just a Bad Day

You get the call at 11am. Your child is dysregulated, the school can't manage the situation, and can you please come and collect them. It happens again two days later. Then the following week. Each time it's framed as a one-off — a difficult morning, a staff shortage, a sensory meltdown that the school "just wasn't prepared for today."

What is actually happening is informal exclusion. And in South Australia, it is both unlawful and systematically under-reported.

What "Informal Exclusion" Actually Means

Formal suspension and exclusion in South Australian government schools is a defined, documented process governed by the Education and Children's Services Act 2019 (SA) and DfE policy. When a student is formally suspended, that decision must be recorded, the parent notified in a specific way, and a return-to-school plan developed. Formal suspensions are subject to reporting requirements and, under the 2026 amendments, principals must now consider the student's age, disability, whether a One Plan is in place, and whether reasonable alternatives to exclusion exist before proceeding.

Informal exclusion bypasses all of that. It involves removing a student from school without triggering the formal reporting mechanism. The most common form is the "take-home" — a phone call asking a parent to collect their child mid-session. Other forms include:

• Asking a child to wait in the office for extended periods until a parent can be reached
• Sending a child home early at the end of a school day rather than managing the situation through to dismissal
• Reducing a student's timetable without formal agreement — for example, switching from full-time to mornings only without any written plan
• Advising parents that their child "should stay home" on particular days when staffing is short

None of these are formal suspensions. None generate a suspension record. None trigger the reporting obligations that formal exclusion does. This is precisely why schools use them.

The Scale of the Problem in South Australia

The Graham Report — the independent inquiry into suspension, exclusion, and expulsion processes in South Australian government schools — found that students receiving disability adjustments comprised 56.6% of suspensions and 67.5% of exclusions in 2019, despite representing a much smaller proportion of the overall student population.

That figure relates to formal exclusions. The true scale of informal exclusion is structurally invisible because it is never recorded. Research from the Commissioner for Children and Young People in SA has documented the experience of students being managed out of school through repeated informal requests, with parents describing an accumulation of calls that effectively amounts to a part-time enrolment that no one signed off on.

The impact on families is severe. Every mid-day collection means a parent who leaves work, a sibling who is disrupted, an afternoon of managing the aftermath of an incomplete school day. More critically, every take-home is a day the school is not developing the capacity to support the child — and each one embeds the implicit message that the child's presence is a problem to be removed rather than a situation to be supported.

Why Take-Homes Are Unlawful

South Australia's Disability Standards for Education 2005 (Cth) (DSE) require schools to make reasonable adjustments to enable a student to participate "on the same basis" as peers without disabilities. Repeatedly removing a student from school rather than providing the support required to keep them there is a direct failure of that obligation.

The DSE also requires schools to develop and implement proactive strategies to address harassment and exclusion. Calling a parent to collect a dysregulated child — rather than implementing the Positive Behaviour Support plan, sensory regulation strategies, or de-escalation approaches already documented in the One Plan — is not a reasonable response. It is a failure to use the tools that already exist.

Under SA's Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL) framework, behaviour is understood as a form of communication. A student who is dysregulated mid-morning is communicating an unmet need — sensory overload, anxiety, inadequate support, an environmental trigger. The school's role under PBL and the DSE is to address the antecedent, not to remove the student.

The 2026 amendments to the Education and Children's Services Act 2019 (SA) strengthened these obligations further. Before applying any exclusionary discipline — which informal take-homes functionally constitute — principals must now legally consider the student's disability, whether a One Plan is in place and being implemented, and whether reasonable alternatives are available. A principal who calls a parent to collect a child without first considering these factors is operating outside the legislative framework.

How Informal Exclusion Circumvents Reporting

This is the structural problem. SA Department for Education data on suspensions and exclusions only captures formal actions. Every take-home that occurs outside the formal process is invisible to the system.

This matters for three reasons. First, the school's exclusion data looks better than it is. Second, parents have no formal record of what has happened to their child, which makes it harder to mount an escalation later. Third, the school faces no accountability for a pattern of behaviour that, if formally recorded, would attract significant scrutiny.

Under the 2026 Inclusive Education Amendment Act, school principals are now required to report annually to the Minister regarding the number of students with disabilities subject to exclusionary discipline. But if take-homes are not recorded as discipline, they do not appear in that data. Creating your own documentation is therefore not just useful — it is the only way the pattern becomes visible.

How to Document and Challenge Informal Exclusion

Start a dated take-home log immediately. Every time the school calls you to collect your child, record the date, the time of the call, what reason was given, what time you collected the child, and whether any follow-up communication came from the school. Keep this in writing. If the school calls you, follow up with an email that same day: "Thank you for the call this afternoon. I am writing to confirm that I collected [child's name] at [time] following your request. For my records, can you confirm the reason for this early collection and what support was available at the time?"

This email does two things. It creates a timestamped record, and it asks the school to put their reasons in writing. Schools that are aware their practice is questionable will often become more careful after the first such email.

Formally request implementation of the One Plan. Most take-homes occur because the supports documented in the One Plan are not in place when the child needs them. If the One Plan requires a sensory break at 10.30am with SSO facilitation, and the take-home call comes at 11.15am, that is directly connected. Write to the principal citing the specific One Plan adjustment that should have prevented or mitigated the situation.

Put the school on notice in writing. Once you have three or more documented instances, send a formal letter to the principal. Cite the DSE 2005. Cite the requirement under the 2026 amendments to consider disability and One Plan implementation before applying exclusionary responses. State the pattern clearly: "On [dates], I was contacted to collect [child's name] from school early. These collections have occurred [X] times over the past [X] weeks. I am concerned that this pattern constitutes informal exclusion under the DSE 2005 and the Education and Children's Services Act 2019 (SA), and that the school may be managing my child's dysregulation through removal rather than through the reasonable adjustments already documented in their One Plan."

Request a Functional Behaviour Assessment. If the school's response to dysregulation is repeated removal, the correct intervention is a Functional Behaviour Assessment (FBA) followed by a formal Positive Behaviour Support Plan. The FBA identifies the environmental antecedents driving the behaviour — what is triggering the dysregulation — rather than simply responding to its expression. Formally request that the school initiate an FBA in writing. This request itself signals that you understand the framework and are not accepting removal as a solution.

For step-by-step templates covering the take-home log, the principal letter, and the FBA request — all structured around SA legislation — see the South Australia Disability Advocacy Playbook.

If the Pattern Continues After You've Raised It

If the school does not change its behaviour after a formal written request, you have clear escalation options.

The first step is the Regional Education Director, who oversees a cluster of schools and can mandate compliance. Include your full documented history when escalating — the take-home log, your emails to the school, and any responses received.

If the informal exclusion is part of a broader pattern of failing to provide reasonable adjustments, you can also lodge a complaint with the Department for Education's Customer Feedback Team (1800 677 435), or escalate to the Equal Opportunity Commission SA under the Equal Opportunity Act 1984 (SA). For formal suspensions — as opposed to take-homes — see the post on formal suspension and disability in South Australia.

The most important thing to understand is that "the school just needed you to pick up your child" is not a neutral administrative request. For families of students with disabilities, it is often a symptom of systemic failure — a failure to staff appropriately, to implement the One Plan, to train staff in de-escalation, and to treat the student's presence as the baseline expectation it legally is.

You are entitled to expect that your child stays at school and receives support. That is what the law requires. Your job is to make the pattern visible and force the school to address it.

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