🚨 🚨🚨NEW: School Exclusions during the Pandemic “Exclusions are detrimental to children’s education, wellbeing and socioemotional development, and it is cause for concern that exclusions are being used at all, let alone amidst a global pandemic.” nomoreexclusions.com/wp-content/upl… 
“Our research found that exclusions occurred extensively prior to lockdown, and continued to occur as soon as pupils returned to school in September 2020.”
“Overall, an astounding 13,268 exclusions were issued between September 2019 and November 2020; this is even more concerning when one considers that this was across just 34 secondary schools and 39 primary schools.”
“For secondary schools, the numbers were significantly higher. Two schools reported zero exclusions but the remaining 32 had already issued 3,628 exclusions between September and mid-November 2020. This included at least 4 permanent exclusions and 728 fixed-term.”
“To note, new reasons for exclusion have arisen since pupils’ return to school, with at least 10 fixed-term exclusions given out in secondary schools for ‘Failure to follow COVID rules’.”
“One sec. school issued over 150 fixed- term exc. within a school roll of just over 800, while a different school issued at least 1,000 internal exc within a school roll of just over 1,000; between September 2019 & March 2020, this same school issued just 950 internal exclusions”
“This school therefore
issued more internal exclusions in two and a half months after pupils returned in September than in seven months before the first national lockdown.”
issued more internal exclusions in two and a half months after pupils returned in September than in seven months before the first national lockdown.”
“Our research findings supported existing evidence that children from marginalised backgrounds are more likely to be excluded: among others, frequently excluded are Black and brown children; children eligible for free school meals; and children on the SEN register.*”
“Significant disparities continue to exist when it comes to the ethnicity of excluded pupils. This is even more striking when the rate of exclusion is considered alongside or against the proportion of the national population these pupils comprise”
“These disparities in exclusion along lines of race and ethnicity are not new; on the contrary, this knowledge has been widely available to governments and schools for decades, underlining the generally disingenuous way in which the UK government operates at all levels.”
“Of our secondary school sample, and of the pupils for whom characteristics data was recorded, 44% of excluded pupils were on the SEN register – at least 30% of which without an EHC Plan”
“Of our sample, and of the pupils for whom characteristics data was recorded, 46% of excluded secondary school pupils and 45% of excluded primary school pupils were eligible for FSM.”
“There are multiple other ways in which we fear exclusions data is, or could be, hidden by and even from schools – including, but not limited to, the following:”
“In our sample of secondary schools, the main reasons for exclusion overall were ‘Persistent Disruptive Behaviour (36%) and ‘Other’ (22%):”
“‘Other’ was the reason for 16% of permanent exclusions, and 15% of fixed-term;
l ‘PDB’ was the reason for 12% of permanent exclusions, and 37% of fixed-term.”
l ‘PDB’ was the reason for 12% of permanent exclusions, and 37% of fixed-term.”
“Both of these ‘reasons’ - Persistent Disruptive Behaviour and Other - are notably vague, rendering schools virtually unaccountable for their actions or these life-altering decisions.”
“It is particularly alarming that the reason given for 16% of permanent exclusions in this sample was simply ‘Other’. Why are these children being permanently removed from secondary school? The lack of transparency here is deeply concerning.”
“Internal exclusions (IE) and pupil characteristics for IEs do not have to be recorded by law. Added to this, on-site inclusion, seclusion or Behaviour Support Units may not even be classified as IE by schools, meaning many IEs could be missing from our data”
“This data supports what we already know regarding who is excluded and why. Yet there are numerous ways in which exclusion practices and their consequences can and do go unnoticed. As mentioned, data could be hidden by the poor response rates from schools;”
“in the granularising of ethnicity data; through the use of ‘other’ as a reason for exclusion; and in the large number of internal cases that are not recorded formally.”
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