Letter: Now it's 'educational cleansing'

I WAS surprised to learn (Letters, 2 August) that an official phrase would appear to exist to describe the blackmailing of parents into removing their children from schools to avoid exclusion. (Whatever happened to the word expulsion?)

Am I alone in seeing a euphemistic similarity between 'persuaded departures' and the phenomenon of 'ethnic cleansing'?

If we were to rename the practice of exclusion policies as 'educational cleansing', we might get a stronger public reaction to what is essentially a serious case of Nimby (Not in my back yard) by teachers.

It is an appalling state of affairs when children with problems are seen as problem children to be sent elsewhere. My own assessment of a school that needs to incorporate an exclusion policy would be that its staff are inadequate in pupil and classroom management skills, and that they are not using available material and resources to enable and empower children to fulfil their potential.

Rosalyn Barber

London SW14