County primaries excluded nine disruptive youngsters in 2019-20

AMID calls for exclusions of primary age pupils to be banned, latest figures show nine violent or disruptive youngsters were shown the door by schools in Leicestershire during the 2019/20 school year.

There were two expulsions for physical assaults on other pupils, three for physical assaults on adults, one for verbal abuse of adults and one for persistent disruption. Pupils were “sin binned” from primary schools for fixed periods 467 times.

Across England, there were 739 permanent exclusions of primary-age pupils in 2019/20. That is down from 1,067 in 2018/19, although the pandemic and restrictions on the number of pupils who could be in schools, is likely to have had an impact.

Pupils were suspended on 47,261 occasions in 2019/20, down from 66,463 times the year before.

A new report from former children’s commissioner Anne Longfield has said exclusions from primary school should be banned by 2026.

The report also argues schools should not be able to receive a “good” or “outstanding” grade from Ofsted without hitting new targets on including vulnerable pupils.

The report, from the Commission on Young Lives, says all schools should report how many pupils have been excluded every year.

It notes that disruptive pupils are sometimes “viewed as a problem that can be pushed on to someone else to deal with” and that some schools have used tactics such as managed moves, off-rolling, exclusions or encouraging families to pursue “home education”.

Permanent exclusions of primary pupils had risen in recent years, from a low of 606 in 2010/11 to 1,253 in 2017/18, although numbers had fallen more recently.

Temporary suspensions had also been rising, from 37,212 in 2009/10 to 66,463 in 2018/19. The report found, before the pandemic, the number of children excluded from school rose by 5 per cent in the autumn of 2019 compared with the same period the previous year.

Anne Longfield, chairwoman of the Commission on Young Lives, said: “Look behind the headlines of the tragic deaths, acts of serious violence and criminal exploitation of our young people over recent years and so often you see a pattern of children disengaging and falling out of school and into harm.

“Not all children who leave mainstream school will be affected, but the statistics show that too many will even more so if the child has special educational needs or is black.”

Research has highlighted how one in five children who had ever been permanently excluded were also cautioned or sentenced for a serious violence offence.

A Department for Education spokesman said: “While permanent exclusion for young children is rare, suspension and exclusion are necessary and essential behaviour management tools.

“We are working to understand and tackle avoidable absence through the attendance alliance, and the Alternative Provision and SAFE taskforces are providing direct, targeted support to vulnerable pupils at risk of crime or exploitation, to keep them engaged in education.”