Record school suspensions and exclusions show the system is “teetering on the brink of collapse”, one leader has said, as a post-Covid tidal wave of problems overwhelms schools.
But which schools are excluding the most pupils, and why? What can we learn from leaders who have got suspensions under control?
And what support do schools say they need from ministers?
Schools Week investigates…
Suspensions across England soared by 40 per cent last autumn, taking rates to their highest level for the seven years government data goes back.
The rate hit 4.13 suspensions per 100 pupils, up from 2.96 the year before, and almost double the pre-pandemic 2.17.
Secondaries accounted for 87 per cent of suspensions, which were most prevalent in the north east and Yorkshire and the Humber.
Meanwhile, the permanent exclusion rate rose by 25 per cent, from 0.04 in autumn 2022 to 0.05 last autumn.
The most common reason for both suspensions and exclusions was “persistent disruptive behaviour”.
Pepe Di’Iasio, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the figures show that “the whole system is teetering on the brink of collapse”.
Which schools exclude most, and why?
Analysis by Education Datalab compared secondary school suspension and exclusion rates pre and post-Covid.
It found the average suspension rate between 2017 and 2019 was 10 per 100 pupils, but this rose by two-thirds to 16.4 across 2022 and 2023.
However, the rise was much more dramatic among schools suspending the most pupils.
The Datalab study found 219 of schools (6 per cent) had suspension rates of more than 50 across 2022 and 2023.
This is more than a 200 per cent increase on the 70 schools (2 per cent) with such rates pre-Covid.
‘Transforming schools involves tackling poor behaviour’
Astrea Academy Woodfields, in Doncaster, issued three suspensions per pupil on average across 2022 and 2023 (a rate of 305 suspensions per every 100 pupils), the highest in the country.
A spokesperson said the school had faced long-term “challenges with behaviour, leading to a very disruptive experience for both students and staff”.
It had never been rated ‘good’, “had leadership challenges, high mobility of students and very poor attendance rates”. The school was rated ‘good’ earlier this year.
‘Turnarounds require more suspensions’…
Second was Outwood Academy Normanby, in Redcar and Cleveland, which averaged 240 suspensions for every 100 pupils.
Its MAT, Outwood Grange Academies Trust (OGAT), had four schools in the top seven. Lee Wilson, its chief executive, said that many of his academies “had been under-performing for years when they joined”.
“Part of transforming schools like this involves tackling the poor behaviour that characterises them, so that all students attending them are safe, happy and can learn in lessons that are not constantly disrupted.
“We don’t want to suspend any student, but suspensions in this type of school are often above average.”
All but one of the 30 schools that suspended the most were academies. However, 80 per cent of secondaries are now academies.
Trusts report suspensions fall
An Astrea trust spokesperson said suspensions had fallen by a third since the introduction of a new behaviour approach last year.
“The rapid transformation of Woodfields meant a change of culture for students and for staff to embed in new expectations,” the spokesperson said. “Students tell us they feel safe and supported at school.”
The school with the third highest rate, at more than 200, was Stephenson Studio School, in Leicestershire, which has since closed.
Tom Bennett, the government behaviour tsar, said the rising exclusion and suspension numbers “speak of the tremendous pressure that staff and leaders are under to keep the school environment safe, calm and dignified. Without that, you cannot protect children (and staff) from harm, and everyone’s educations are ruined.”
When exclusions were not used, pupils “get assaulted, bullied, harassed and their lives made a misery”.
…and they do fall (but not all the time)
While four OGAT secondaries were among the top seven suspenders across 2022 and 2023, another seven of its academies had among the highest drops compared with pre-Covid rates. One fell by 86 per cent.
“Improving these schools takes time and progress is not uniform, but in general the behaviour becomes really good after a period of time,” Wilson said. “That means suspensions fall… it’s something we are working hard at achieving in all our schools.”
And many people do not agree that school turnarounds require large numbers of exclusions and suspensions.
However, just three of the 10 schools with the highest suspension rates moved into new trusts after January 2019 – suggesting it can take many years at the least for rates to fall.
And others disagree school turnarounds require large numbers of exclusions.
Anne Longfield, who now chairs the Centre for Young Lives, said: “Being inclusive is not a soft option. It’s absolutely about setting out with intent and putting the policies in place that will be able to anticipate and support children to stay there.
“But there are fantastic examples of inclusive schools that are, through interventions and support, managing to keep almost 100 per cent learning and thriving in school.”
She pointed to a report she published five years ago, during her time as children’s commissioner, that found just 10 per cent of schools in England were responsible for 88 per cent of all exclusions in 2016-17.
Rising poverty tide overwhelms schools
But poverty is “one of the most powerful factors increasing a child’s risk of permanent exclusion”, said a report this year from IPPR and The Difference, a charity supporting leaders to reduce exclusions.
And rising poverty, is likely to translate into rising exclusions.
More than one in three children – 5.2 million – are now living in poverty, the highest ever, a study by the Social Metrics Commission has found.
‘The pressure on schools to support the poorest pupils is intensifying’
Of the 10 schools that suspended the most, between 39 and 58 per cent of their cohorts were eligible for free school meals. Nationally, just under a quarter of pupils receive free meals.
The Centre for Social Justice warned in January that “as the cost-of-living crisis persists and the relationship between disadvantage and exclusion strengthens, the risk of children living in poverty falling through cracks in the education system increases”.
As these challenges become “more widespread, the pressure on schools to support the poorest pupils intensifies”.
And poverty is just one of the post-pandemic tidal waves hitting schools.
Children ‘not used to being in school’
“We’ve got children who aren’t used to being in school… and post-Covid there’s been a spike in people not necessarily wanting to engage in school and education,” said Ann Donaghy, the executive principal of Alvaston Moor Academy.
The Derby school issued 176 suspensions per 100 pupils across 2022 and 2023 – among the ten highest in our analysis.
Donaghy said last year, 36 per cent of pupils admitted in-year were electively home-educated, adding the school had spare capacity. It had never been rated ‘requires improvement’. About 70 per cent of its children were on pupil premium.
“It’s got a reputation within the community of being a really tough school to turn around,” she said.
The Co-op Academy Grange in Bradford had a suspension rate of 125, a rise of 600 per cent since 2019. Just over half its pupils are on free school meals.
“It is well-known that these students and their families were the most affected by Covid,” said Chris Tomlinson, thee chief executive of the Co-operative Academies Trust.
Like Alvaston, the school also accepts high numbers of in-year admissions, including managed moves of pupils at risk of exclusion.
Worsening behaviour
“A great deal of work has needed to be done to bring these students back to school and reacclimatise them with school routines and expectations,” Tomlinson said.
Behaviour data backs that up. Teachers reported losing seven minutes per every half an hour of lesson time to misbehaviour last year, up from 6.3 minutes the year before, the government’s national behaviour study found.
In May 2023, 75 per cent of teachers said pupils misbehaving “stopped or interrupted” teaching in at least some lessons in the past week, up from 64 per cent in 2022.
Di’Iasio said there was “clearly a very serious problem” of increased challenging behaviour and “persistent disruptive behaviour”.
Meanwhile, Teacher Tapp surveys show teachers now cite behaviour as their biggest source of workplace stress, overtaking accountability.
And more than 55 per cent of pupils identify it as the “most important issue facings schools”, Public First polling shows.
‘A last resort’
But they are much less likely to blame bad behaviour on social factors – such as pupils having a “difficult home life” – when compared with teachers.
However, youngsters whose families receive support from social services and those on child protection plans are about “five times more likely to be suspended” and eight times more likely to be permanently excluded, according to The Difference and IPPR research.
Those with the most severe special educational needs are expelled three times the rate of their peers.
Jonny Uttley, the chief executive of the Education Alliance in the Humber, stressed that heads needed the right to suspend or exclude as “a last resort”, with vulnerable children being “the ones who most need calm, well-behaved schools”.
But he said “you can have high standards without massively high suspensions. The problem that we’ve had in the system is there are too many people who believe the only to have a calm school is through zero tolerance, silent corridors and that high levels of exclusion are inevitable.”
System creaks under exclusions rise
Rising exclusions are also putting more strain on an already fragile school system and creating tensions in regions.
Hampshire council, in a submission to the Public Accounts Committee’s investigation into the SEND crisis, flagged the high number of suspensions and exclusions in “several academies”.
Authority analysis suggests sponsored secondary academies have suspension rates on average 278 per cent higher than community schools. Rates in voluntary converters are just over 20 per cent higher.
Each of the top five suspending secondaries are academies, causing a places crisis in alternative provision.
But Hampshire said it had “limited means to challenge trusts to act”.
During a public council meeting for rocketing exclusion rates in Nottingham, David Mellen, the former city council leader, lambasted trusts and “their attitude”.
“We’ve got a fragmented system in our country where we have chief executives of academy chains who earn more than any person in this organisation, and yet are unaccountable to the public and can exclude children in a way that seems at a higher level than other people running schools in similar areas,” reported The Nottingham Post.
However, many trusts takeover schools that have fallen into ‘inadequate’ under council control – meaning they are more likely to have challenging schools than those remaining under council oversight.
Pupils without education as AP overwhelmed
But Mellen said last year “saw the highest number of permanent exclusions” in the area, “with over 200 pupils needing to be placed” at council-commissioned AP sites, he said.
Authority chiefs fear that if rates persist “it will be unlikely… [for them] to meet [their] statutory duties” to provide alternative provision within six days of expelled pupils being removed from lessons.
That’s already happening elsewhere.
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council documents show the authority placed only 1.3 per cent of permanently excluded children into AP within six days in 2023-24. Its target was 100 per cent.
The figure has risen to 68 per cent this academic year. Those not getting provision are “too young” or unable to access online provision, the council said.
The Difference’s report showed many youngsters are now entering costly AP “not run by the state”, but paid for by councils. Since 2019, there has been “a 49 per cent rise in children educated in unregistered alternative provision”.
“This is concerning given the lack of regulation and oversight for these placements and the vulnerability of the population,” the report added.
So how do we solve this?
Public First’s research showed nearly all teachers who knew an excluded student well said “there were signs the pupil was on a path to exclusion”.
But fewer than two-thirds reported “that these signs had been picked up and acted upon” – meaning early intervention is “crucial”, but currently “under-resourced”.
Kiran Gill, founder of The Difference, wants more sophisticated data that shows “a truthful picture of who’s losing learning”. That is because numbers for managed moves, off-site AP and internal isolation are either patchy or not reported at all.
When MATs work well to reduce lost learning, they “look across the piece… so they can be honest about whether it’s falling or not”, Gill said.
A London Assembly report from 2019 said the true extent of school exclusions was masked.
It raised concerns parents were being “pushed towards managed moves as an alternative to exclusion” and “encouraged by schools to home-educate their child”, as it called for more “accountability and transparency” over decisions.
Meanwhile, Astrea wants leaders to be “given time and support to rebuild relationships with their communities and to re-establish the respect that educational settings should have”.
Who’s managed to bring down suspensions
And what more can we learn from schools in deprived areas that keep suspensions down?
Carlton Bolling, in Bradford, is classed as a “similar school” to the Co-op Academy Grange – one of the highest suspending schools – on Datalab’s Schools Like Yours tool.
But Carlton Bolling had just 10 suspensions per every 100 pupils across 2022 and 2023.
Ross Mezals, its assistant head, said the secondary is in an area with high levels of organised crime and deprivation, with some pupils not having a mattress to sleep on.
Leaders attributed their low figures to, in part, investment in behaviour teams, which provide each year group with two non-teaching specialists to support teachers.
It has also opted against taking a blanket approach to sanctions. Decisions around punishments are informed by the child’s circumstances, needs and home life.
“With a one-size-fits-all, you can find yourself suspending students and making the situation much worse because you’re looking at the behaviour in isolation and not the wider picture,” said Andrew Ingham, the school’s deputy head for behaviour.
‘We had to change tack’
The Aylward Academy in north London was for “many years” in the “top 10 per cent of schools for suspensions”, said Habib Hussein, its deputy head.
“We just had to change tack. We were going round doing the same things over and over again.”
But after an introduction to trauma-informed behaviour management – which aims to support children by creating inclusive and safe environments – and “making teachers understand the importance of the restorative justice approach” numbers tumbled.
In 2021-22, the school – run by Lift, formerly AET – suspended 168 times. The following year, it fell to 39, taking its rate to 2.8.
Carr Manor Community School, in Leeds, has not permanently excluded a pupil in 19 years.
Simon Flowers, its executive principal who took over the reins in 2005, said that before his arrival it “had a culture of exclusion”, was “half empty” and eyed up for closure by the local authority.
Successful initiatives include groups of 10 youngsters from different year groups and backgrounds meeting three times a week to play games, talk about sensitive issues and their work.
All staff – not just teachers – are trained to lead these groups and use “restorative practice techniques” to encourage the children to speak to each other. Building “skills of relating to each other rolls out into the daily practice in school”, according to Flowers.
“We’ve created a culture where it’s all about inclusion… consequently exclusion becomes a very rare occasion.”
Twenty-seven per cent of Carr Manor pupils are FSM eligible, according to DfE figures.
Alvaston Moor has now reduced suspension rates to 12.3 this term, Donaghy said. Since the start of term, it has held on average 10 in-school meetings with parents every day. On-site intervention workshops have also been attended by 115 parents over the past two months.
Rise of ‘internal AP’
Alvaston’s trust has also invested £1.5 million in “an internal AP and intervention systems”, recruiting staff to work with children with additional needs.
Schools are “increasingly responding to rising needs by setting up provision on site [often called internal AP] to support students at risk of exclusion”, The Difference and IPPR found.
DfE data last year found “only 67 per cent of teachers believe that their school has a clear system for responding when a pupil is identified as needing additional support for behaviour”.
The Difference said the “strongest practice” in internal AP “supports exclusion prevention by including a diagnosis of needs, curriculum and/or emotional intervention, and support with reintegration into mainstream classes”.
But there is “widely varied practice”, and some forms of internal AP “can be a form of exclusion”, the report added.
A London Assembly paper of 2019 found examples of pupils “isolated without support for their social, emotional or educational needs”.
“Many schools do not have the funding or the staffing to be able to provide intensive support to de-escalate issues and prevent exclusions,” it said.
Tomlinson said the launch of Co-op Grange’s on-site provision had helped “significantly reduce the number of permanent exclusions and suspensions”. Pupils were “taught by our staff and following our curriculum”.
‘A valuable reset’
Ofsted inspectors recently said the provision was “having an impact for a number of vulnerable” children, offering “a valuable reset for pupils who are then able to transition back into mainstream school”.
Co-op Grange has also introduced a behaviour curriculum – which sits “alongside the wider PSHE, RSE and safeguarding curriculum” – with interventions ranging from counselling to boxing and hair and beauty.
More solutions are due soon. The Difference’s lost learning expert panel will hear evidence from leaders, parents and organisations over the next four months. Chaired by Di’Iasio, it aims to uncover “promising work currently happening in pockets across the country and advise on how these ought to be translated into national policy solutions”.
Panel members include Sir Dan Moynihan, the chief executive of the Harris Federation, and Liz Robinson, the chief executive of the Big Education Trust.
“We need to have just as much effort in the next decade on the school leadership of inclusion as we had in the last decade on the school leadership of curriculum,” added Gill.
