This report draws on CCLC’s legal casework representing children facing exclusion, alongside case studies from Coram’s Child Law Advice Service. It highlights how children with the greatest need can lose access to education through informal exclusionary practices with little transparency or scrutiny. The report also finds serious shortcomings in review mechanisms including a lack of independence, long delays and powerless independent review panels.

Ahead of the Government’s inclusion reforms, the report calls for clearer national guidance on exclusionary practices outside the statutory framework and sets out recommendations to ensure strengthened IRPs and greater transparency and accountability across the exclusions system.