Blog
02/10/2025
Disparities in school suspensions and exclusions
Over the summer, the Department for Education released the latest school exclusion statistics, covering students excluded over the academic year 2023/24. As with many government statistics, the data highlight some of the stark disparities that mark Britain in 2025. These are tragically familiar divisions between the outcomes of those in London and those in the North; disadvantages for children who have additional needs for support (and often do not get it); and divisions based on children’s ethnic heritage.
These disparities represent real challenges for the government in achieving its Opportunity Mission, the aim of which is to break the link between a child’s background and their future success. They force us to question the extent to which our schools reproduce the inequalities that mar our wider social life – and how to ensure schools can instead narrow the gaps.
Higher suspension rates in the North of England
Compared to London students, those in the North are much more likely to have their education withdrawn. For example, the rate at which schools suspend students in the North East or Yorkshire and the Humber is more than three times the rate in London. Over the academic year 2023/24 – the most recent period for which data is available – the average secondary school in the North East had pupils missing 717 days of education due to suspensions; the average secondary school in Yorkshire and the Humber had pupils missing 751 days due to suspensions; and the average school in London had pupils missing 307 days due to suspensions. (Accounting for the larger average size of schools in London the disparities in suspension rates are even higher.)
The most common reason a school notes for suspending a student is ‘persistent disruptive behaviour’ and the differences between London and the North are at least partly reflective of school perceptions of student behaviour. ‘Persistent disruptive behaviour’ was given as a reason for 64% of suspensions in the North East (and 57% in Yorkshire and the Humber), compared to 37% of suspensions in London. The difference is even starker in local areas: 77% of suspensions in Hartlepool, and 76% in Redcar and Cleveland, were for ‘persistent disruptive behaviour’ compared to just 17% of suspensions in Slough and the London borough of Redbridge.
This feeds through into permanent exclusion: 46% of permanent exclusions in the North East are for ‘persistent disruptive behaviour’ compared to 30% of exclusions in London.
We need to ask why so many more students in the North are missing out on education.
Children receiving free school meals or with special educational needs
Children on free school meals and those with special educational needs can also expect to be suspended and excluded from school far more often than their fellow students.
Children eligible for free school meals are over four times as likely to be suspended and over five times as likely to be permanently excluded as their wealthier peers.
All students with identified special educational needs are suspended at a higher rate, but those without an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) are the most likely to be suspended. In the latest data, those without an EHCP were almost four times as likely to be suspended and over five times as likely to be permanently excluded as their peers with no special educational needs. These children may be many of the same children excluded for ‘persistent disruptive behaviour’: the SEND Code of Practice describes some manifestations of social, emotional, or mental health needs (SEMH), as “displaying challenging, disruptive or disturbing behaviour”.
Again, what can we do to reform a school system that seems to be shepherding some of our poorer pupils, and those with additional needs, towards these outcomes – suspension and exclusion?
A young person working with Coram, with experience of school exclusion, noted that:
There are so many issues that a child goes through nowadays, like abuse, trauma, depression, anxiety, financial issues, self-consciousness, hypervigilance and more, that teachers do not care to even recognise. And the ones that do, very few are actually able to do a lot without the rest of the school system working together to solve the issue.
Not enough teachers care to actually look into why a child is acting a certain away, but instead amplify the negative behaviours by telling them they’re a “bad kid” or “troubled” … which only results in self-fulfilling prophecies.
Black Caribbean and Gypsy, Roma Traveller children
The recent data on suspensions and exclusions also highlight longstanding disparities in outcomes for children of different ethnic heritages. Rates of suspension and exclusion are consistently elevated for children of Black Caribbean and Gypsy, Roma and Traveller heritages in particular.
For example, in the latest data, the suspension and exclusion rates of children with Irish Traveller heritage were double the rate for other children, and the rates for children with Gypsy/Roma heritage were three times higher.
These issues are also intersectional, for instance with region and ethnicity coming together. For example in Yorkshire and the Humber, the 2303 children of Gypsy/Roma heritage on the registers at secondary schools in 2023/24 were suspended 3968 times. Some children were suspended more than once, but over the academic year, 37% of this group of children were suspended at least once. This is a suspension rate more than seven times the average for children in secondary schools.
When schools are suspending a group of students at this rate, when there is this level of learning loss for a specific group, it is imperative that urgent questions are asked about how to make our education system inclusive for all children.
Meeting children’s needs
The school exclusions system puts pressure on children and parents to understand complex law and lengthy, difficult processes. It is for this reason that we have built the School Exclusions Hub.
As well as providing more support to families, schools have a huge role to play in moving towards a less punitive and more supportive mindset, and towards a more safeguarding-based and less behaviour-based approach.
Coram’s research team conducted an evaluation last year of two community services working with families and schools to address challenges experienced by students. The parents and carers we spoke to explained how schools were failing to meet their children’s needs. It was only after an intervention by the service that schools’ behaviour changed:
I think the school sent a letter just like “It’s your responsibility” and you know, like kind of saying like if her attendance is below a certain amount and they could take me to court. But I think after [the service were] in touch with them they did change their approach to like actually “What have we done to help?”
They were thinking about moving my son to different school. They were very persistent with that idea… So when [the service] was explaining how my son is behaving… how he’s struggling with certain things I think the school started understanding that.
We need more schools to have these moments of recognition – ideally without external intervention. As the national data on exclusions and suspensions show, some schools need an increased focus on understanding and meeting the needs of all children if our schools are to be places that work to dismantle systemic disadvantage, not reinforce it.
A young person working with Coram, with experience of school exclusion, noted:
The solution, one of them at least, will always be inclusion… it is your job as teachers and authority figures to ensure you give them the benefit of the doubt, as they are your student.
Or at least look into what potentially could be the reason they acted like that in the first place, with an open mind, recognising unconscious bias and being mental health aware, trauma informed and aware, LGBTQIA+ aware and lastly, life adversity aware, before ever assuming someone is behaving negatively just to be bad or “ruin the reputation of the school.”