Primary schools need more specialist help to deal with vulnerable children with additional needs as some are being left out of mainstream education for too long, Ofsted says.

The last five years has seen the number of primary school-age children who have been referred to alternative provision (AP) surge by a quarter to 7,000.

These units are used when a school cannot manage the child’s physical or verbally violent behaviour, and the negative effects it may have on other pupils and staff.

Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman said: “It seems shocking that primary age children as young as five could be taken out of school for violent behaviour”, but APs can be a “positive choice” for these children.

She warned: “Limited access to external services and lengthy waiting times for a special school place, mean some vulnerable children languish for years in APs that cannot provide the specialist support they need.

“And the consequences for these children may last well into their adult lives.”

She was speaking after Ofsted carried out research involving interviews with parents plus school and local authority staff to find out why the children were being referred to AP’s in the first place, the challenges faced in trying to support the pupils and how these units may help them.

Most primary-age pupils only stayed in AP for a few weeks or months, and usually attended part time, according to Ofsted which found that some children with additional needs stayed in AP for years while they waited for a special school place.

This meant that AP staff may have been unable to fully meet their needs in the meantime and this lack of appropriate teaching and specialist support could have long-term consequences for these vulnerable children, Ofsted said.

Primary school staff said the strain on specialist services nationally, which had only got worse because of the pandemic, had made it more difficult to support pupils with special educational needs.

It was feared that limited access to professional help, such as speech and language therapists or educational psychology services, may have led to more AP referrals and possibly more permanent exclusions.

A lack of training, funding or facilities and a breakdown in the relationship between parents and school saw children referred to AP, Ofsted heard.

An AP referral was sometimes used in these cases as a “circuit breaker” to try and help repair these relationships while an effort was still being made to support the child. The AP effectively became a mediator between the school and parents.

School staff believed a pupils’ violent behaviour often stemmed from difficult home lives or undiagnosed special educational needs and disability (Send). A large majority of children in the study had social, emotional and health needs, Ofsted found.

Many staff expected the pupil would return to mainstream education while work would be carried out between the child, school and AP to find a better setting for them to attend in the future, such as a special school.

AP’s were seen by schools as an important way to spot the child’s needs early and to try and prevent their behaviour from escalating. In turn, AP staff said that funding matters had dealt a blow to the amount of outreach work they could do.

Ofsted found that some APs had specialist teams on site, so that pupils’ needs could be understood and addressed quickly.

The families of these children – which may include parents with their own emotional, cognitive or learning needs – might also be able to get help from the APs.

All parents involved in the research told Ofsted their child’s behaviour and academic work had improved since joining an AP, but some were unsure whether that would lead to a substantial “change” that would leave them as happy infants once they had left the unit.