Number of School Suspensions Nearly Doubled After Lockdown: Government Data

The number of pupils being suspended from school has nearly doubled since before the COVID-19 lockdown, according to Department for Education (DfE) data.
The number of suspensions—when a child is excluded for a set period of time—has also increased sharply on the year before, rising 40 percent on the 247,366 during the autumn term of 2022/2023.
In terms of the rate of suspensions, before the pandemic, it stood at 2.17 and is now almost double at 4.13, equivalent to 413 suspensions for every 10,000 children.
“There are more pupils being suspended, and more frequently,” the DfE said in its report, noting that the total number of days pupils are being suspended is increasing.
The rate of permanent exclusions has also increased, going from 0.04 in the autumn term of 2019/2020 to 0.05 at the start of 2023/2024. In terms of numbers, autumn 2023 saw 4,200 permanent exclusions, an increase of 1,000 on the pre-lockdown autumn term.
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said, “This has become a great deal worse since the pandemic, where many children experienced disruption to their education and isolation that are continuing to have a lasting impact.”
Di’Iasio said that schools often do not have the resources to provide specialist support to prevent behavioural issues from getting worse, “and so we see this ending up with suspensions and permanent exclusions being used as a last resort.”
Paul Whiteman, general secretary at the school leaders’ union the National Association of Head Teachers, said that disruptive behaviour had its roots in challenges facing families, “with parents having faced everything from a cost of living crisis to a pandemic in recent years.”
Education Minister Stephen Morgan said in response to the surge that the government was “determined to turn the tide on poor behaviour, break down barriers to opportunity and ensure every child can achieve and thrive.”
Morgan said: “We’ve already announced a significant £1 billion investment in Send, committed to providing access to specialist mental health professionals in every school, and our new regional improvement teams will work with schools to spread the highest standards of behaviour across our classrooms.
The report said that teachers had reported “greater behaviour problems in classrooms since the pandemic,” the think tank adding that by its estimates, there has been a “significant decline in the socio-emotional skills for successive COVID-19 cohorts.”
Severe absence (missing 50 percent or more sessions) has increased year-on-year, with 2.1 percent of pupils being severely absent in autumn and spring 2023/2024, an increase from 1.9 percent in the same terms in 2022/2023. This equates to 158,000 children, increasing from 139,000.
“Without faster and further action, like the national rollout of attendance mentors and a parental participation strategy, we will be picking up the pieces from this unfolding social disaster for years to come,” Prescott added.