Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the reasons for the trends in the level of permanent exclusions of children from schools in the last fifteen years; and whether he has made a statistical analysis of the variations of those reasons by (a) local authority and (b) region of England.

The department agrees with the Timpson Review’s conclusion that there is no ‘right’ number of exclusions. We are clear that permanent exclusion should only be used when necessary, as a last resort and this should not mean exclusion from education.

The Timpson Review explored how headteachers use exclusion, and why pupils with particular characteristics are more likely to be excluded from school. This review can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/school-exclusions-review-call-for-evidence.

Statistics on permanent exclusions from the 2006/07 academic year onwards are available in the national statistics release 'Permanent exclusions and suspensions in England'. This can be accessed here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/permanent-and-fixed-period-exclusions-in-england.

The national trend can be accessed here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/0ed81d36-3d56-4f12-9a33-9acd2058a403.

In the Explore data and files section of the publication, under open data, the file on permanent exclusions and suspensions by geography includes the numbers and rates of permanent exclusions at national, regional and local authority level. The file on permanent exclusions and suspensions by reason includes data by reason for exclusion at national, regional, and local authority level. Consistent data is available from 2006/07.

A technical note that included further statistical analysis into the association between probability of being excluded and various pupil and school characteristics was published alongside the Timpson Review. This can be accessed here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/799910/Technical_note.pdf.