Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment his Department has made of trends in the level of school exclusions for each ethnic group.

The rate of exclusion varies by pupil ethnicity, with pupils of some ethnic groups more likely to be excluded and others less.[1]

Last March, the Government commissioned Edward Timpson to explore how head teachers use exclusion and why some groups of pupils are more likely to be excluded than others.

New analysis undertaken for the Timpson Review shows that some ethnic groups are more likely to be excluded after controlling for other observable characteristics. For example, after accounting for other factors, Black Caribbean children are around 1.7 times more likely to be permanently excluded compared to White British children, while Mixed White and Black Caribbean children are around 1.6 times more likely, and Indian and Bangladeshi pupils are around half as likely.

Equally, children in some ethnic groups do not appear to be permanently excluded at a different rate from White British pupils, such as Black African children.

The Timpson review, the analysis technical note, and the Government’s response can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/school-exclusions-review-call-for-evidence.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/permanent-and-fixed-period-exclusions-in-england-2016-to-2017. National tables, table 8.