1.1 Requirements for schools
The headteacher of a school can exclude a pupil on disciplinary grounds only.
Good discipline in schools is essential to ensure all pupils can benefit from the opportunities provided by education.
The decision to exclude a pupil must be lawful, reasonable and fair. In addition, schools have a statutory duty not to discriminate against pupils on the basis of protected characteristics, such as disability or race.
Schools and LAs must arrange alternative provision from the sixth day of the exclusion of pupils of compulsory school age.
For further information: Statutory guidance: school suspensions and permanent exclusions (opens in a new tab).
1.2 Uses and users of exclusion statistics and data
The data used to publish exclusions statistics is collected via the school census which is used by a variety of companies and organisations including:
- mainstream and specialist media companies
- housing websites such as Rightmove and Zoopla
- specialist publications such as the good schools guide
- data analysis organisations such the Fischer Family Trust
- academic research and think tank organisations such as Durham University and the Education Policy Institute
- central government organisations such as DfE, Ofsted and other government departments
The published data is also used in answers to parliamentary questions and public enquiries - including those made under the Freedom of Information Act.
1.3 Current publications
From November 2022, DfE has published termly exclusions data via the ‘Suspensions and permanent exclusions in England’ accredited official statistics release. This means there are three publications per year, covering the autumn term, spring term and the full academic year.
In the past DfE published annual exclusions data in July each year. This publication has previously been called ‘Permanent and fixed-period exclusions in England’.
Links to all exclusions publications can be found in Annex C.
1.4 Key exclusion measures
DfE monitors pupil exclusion levels using key measures based on suspensions and permanent exclusions.
Permanent exclusion refers to a pupil who's excluded and who will not come back to that school (unless the exclusion is overturned).
Suspension refers to a pupil who's excluded from a school for a set period of time.
A suspension can involve a part of the school day and does not have to be for a continuous period.
A pupil may be suspended for one or more fixed-periods up to a maximum of 45 school days in a single academic year.
This total includes exclusions from previous schools covered by the exclusion legislation.
Pupils with one or more suspensions refers to pupils who have at least one suspension across the reporting period (term or full academic year).
It includes those with repeated suspensions.
For further information on calculation of exclusion rates see Annex A.
1.5 Cohort used in exclusion measures
Exclusions information relates to all exclusions reported across the full academic year.
For full academic year data, and for termly data published in full year publications released prior to November 2022, exclusion rates are calculated as a proportion of all pupils on roll as at the January Census day of the relevant academic year.
From November 2022, full year data continues to use pupil on roll figures from the Spring census (January) however termly data is presented using pupil on roll figures from the census for that specific term. As no census was taken for Summer 2019/20, headcount figures from Summer 2019/20 correspond to the Spring (January census).
1.6 Published geographical and characteristics breakdowns
DfE routinely publishes pupil exclusions information at national and local authority level including breakdowns by pupil characteristics.
School level data is also released but it should be noted that DfE does not hold individual schools to account based purely on their exclusion figures and does not set exclusion thresholds or targets on the use of exclusion.
Ofsted assesses schools' use of exclusion as part of inspection arrangements.
1.7 Appeals and reviews relating to exclusion
In addition to permanent exclusions and suspension figures, academic year releases also include information on the number of appeals and reviews relating to permanent exclusions reported by local authorities (LAs).
For further information see section 3.3 Appeals and reviews relating to permanent exclusions.
1.8 Suppression of exclusions data
The Code of Practice for Statistics (opens in a new tab) requires reasonable steps are taken to ensure all published or disseminated statistics produced by DfE protect confidentiality.
In this release figures in underlying data files are not rounded or suppressed, except for the figures on Post Looked After Arrangements, which are treated the same way as other statistics on Children Looked After. In the commentary numbers and percentages may be rounded for brevity.
Symbols used to identify this in published tables: | |
---|---|
0 | Zero |
c | Small number suppressed to preserve confidentiality |
z | Not applicable |
x | Not available |
In old publications different rounding and suppression conventions were used.
To assist users a full time series of data has been made available within the latest published time series tables and underlying data.
1.10 Other related publications
Pupil exclusions information is also available in the following publications:
- A profile of pupil exclusions in England (opens in a new tab) - research report published in February 2012 with in-depth analysis of exclusions
Outcomes of children in need, including looked after children published by DfE:
outcomes-of-children-in-need-including-looked-after-children
1.11 Devolved administration statistics on suspensions and permanent exclusions
DfE collects and reports on exclusions information from schools in England.
For information for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland: