Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many teachers have reported physical abuse by pupils in the London Borough of Havering in each of the last three years.

The information requested is not held by the department.

The department collects information on suspensions and permanent exclusions by reason, including physical abuse against an adult. This is published in the ‘Suspensions and permanent exclusions in England’ national statistics release, which is available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/suspensions-and-permanent-exclusions-in-england/2021-22-summer-term.

The following links from the ‘create your own table’ section of the release show the number of suspensions and permanent exclusions from Havering, including a reason of physical abuse against an adult: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/73082d40-c091-46c4-ff84-08dc1c7e70f9 and https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/7bde4a81-9b2c-4fa3-9652-08dc1cb7c782. Since 2020/21, suspensions and permanent exclusions can have up to three reasons. Before 2020/21, schools were asked to give one main reason. Therefore, figures for earlier years are not comparable to those from 2020/21 onwards.

Creating school cultures with high expectations of behaviour is a priority for the government. The department supports head teachers in using exclusion, where warranted, as a part of an approach to create calm, safe and supportive environments where both pupils and staff can work in safety and are respected. This includes supporting using permanent exclusion in instances where allowing the pupil to remain in school would seriously harm the education or welfare of the pupil or others in the school.