Wales School exclusions |
Key points
- In the few years, the annual number of children permanently excluded from school has halved, fallen around 400 to around 200. Most are boys.
- The rate of permanent exclusion is much lower in Wales than in most of the English regions (all bar Yorkshire & the Humber) but higher than in Scotland.
Graph 1: Over time
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Graph 2: Compared to Great Britain
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Definitions and data sources
All the graphs concern permanent exclusions only and do not include temporary exclusions (which are much higher but have much less of an obvious relationship with social exclusion).
The first graph shows the number of pupils permanently excluded each year. All schools in Wales are included in the statistics.
The second graph shows how the rate of permanent exclusions in Wales compares with the rest of Great Britain.
The source for the Welsh data in both graphs is the Welsh Assembly Government's publications entitled Exclusions from schools and the data covers all maintained primary, secondary and special schools plus pupil referral units. The data in the second graph for England and Scotland is from Department for Education Statistical Bulletins and the Scottish Government's publications entitled Exclusion from schools respectively.
Overall adequacy of the indicator: medium. Exclusions are susceptible to administrative procedures; for example, these officially recorded numbers may well under-represent the true number of exclusions if parents are persuaded to withdraw their child rather than leave the school to exclude them.