CANTERBURY CHRIST CHURCH COLLEGE
FINAL Report on follow-up SURVEY of PERMANENT
exclusions from schools in England - 1995/96
INTRODUCTION
In 1994 Christ Church College was contracted by the DFE to carry out a survey which had three foci: LEAs’ policies and procedures on the provision of education for pupils out of school; numbers of pupils permanently excluded during the 1993-94 school year (i.e. before the 1993 legislation came into force) and during the autumn term of 1994; provision being made for permanently excluded pupils during autumn term 1994 (numbers in pupil referral units receiving home tuition etc). This work is reported in a number of articles (DFE 1995, Parsons 1996, Parsons & Howlett 1996).
In September 1995 a sample survey was carried out to provide a basis on which an estimate could be made of the numbers of permanently excluded pupils during the 1994-95 school year. In September and October 1996 a further follow-up survey has been conducted. A high response rate was achieved from Local Education Authorities providing a firm basis for estimating the total numbers permanently excluded from schools in England during the 1995-96 school year.
THE 1996 SURVEY
All directors of education/chief education officers in England were contacted in August asking for their cooperation in this survey and asking for the named person to be contacted with the single side questionnaire. All 117 English LEAs were contacted with the questionnaire which asked for a breakdown of permanent exclusions according to gender and primary, secondary and special school. The request was for permanent exclusions within the compulsory school age range for those cases where formal procedures were complete and the formal exclusion was ratified and to include exclusions from all schools within the LEA’s area including GM schools and pupils who live out of the area but attend schools in the LEA.
Ninety-six responses were received from the 117 LEAs. Ninety-one of these were useable. The main difficulties occurred with some of the new LEAs which came into being in April 1996 and whose figures only began at the point of their inception. In calculating the total number of exclusions for the country as a whole, numbers for non-responding LEAs have been estimated by applying the mean permanent exclusions rate for each school type (calculated separately for metropolitan, inner-London, outer-London and county LEAs) to the relevant school populations for January 1994. In the few cases where gender was not specified, this has been allocated proportionately according to school type, and the ratio of boys to girls in the sample. Table 1 gives the breakdown of estimates for the country as a whole.
Table 1: Pupils permanently excluded from maintained schools in England in the period 1 September 1995 - 31 July 1996
School type / Boys[1] / Girls[1] / Total for91 LEAs / Estimated totals for 117 LEAs[2] / Percentages
Primary / 1414 / 99 / 1513 / 1872 / 13.78%
Secondary / 7346 / 1691 / 9037 / 11159 / 82.17%
Special / 397 / 52 / 449 / 550 / 4.05%
Overall total / 10,999 / 13,581 / 100%
The numbers of pupils permanently excluded from schools in England continues to rise. The graph below (Figure 1) indicates that, while the upward trend may not be as steep, 13,581 pupils were permanently excluded in the last full school year. This amounts to one secondary school pupil in every 240 and one primary school pupil in every 2,300.
Figure 1: Trend in permanent exclusions - 1990 - 96
The increase in permanent exclusions from primary schools appears to be higher than for secondary schools though, at 13.8% they remain a small proportion of the overall exclusions. The overall increase on the previous year’s estimate is 11%. The basis for the estimates of the earlier estimates are given in Parsons (1996).
The gender ratio is significantly different for each of the three school types as set out in the three pie charts below.
Figure 2: Gender and permanent exclusion by school type
The rates of exclusion vary according to the type of LEA. Figures 3a and 3b below gives the rates of exclusion by metropolitan, county, inner London and outer London LEAs
Figure 3a: Exclusion rates by school type and LEA type 1993/94
Figure 3b: Exclusion rates by school type and LEA type 1995/96
The rates of permanent exclusions in all four LEA types have generally risen for all types of school. The profile of the bar charts in both years remain very similar suggesting the constancy of the problem. In three quarters of the LEAs for which there are data for both years (81) there has been an increase in the total of permanent exclusions.
The overall permanent exclusion rate across the full range of schools in England for 1995/96 is 0.193%.
Conclusion
The rates of exclusion from all types of schools and in most LEAs are on a continuing upward trend. Action needs to be taken at the levels of legislation, resources and practical intervention to deal more effectively with the problem which recent reports suggest is costing the public purse dearly (CRE, 1996).
References
Commission forRacial Equality (1996) Exclusion from School: The Public Cost. London: CRE
DFE (1995a) National Survey of Local Education Authorities’ Policies and Procedures for the Identification of, and Provision for, Children who are out of School by Reason of Exclusion or Otherwise. London: Department for Education
Parsons, C. (1996) Permanent Exclusions from Schools in England: Trends, Causes and Responses, in Children and Society ,Vol. 10 pp177-186
Dr Carl Parsons
Reader in Education
Christ Church College
Canterbury
CT1 1QU
Tel: 01227 782351
Fax: 01227 470442
E-Mail:
November 27, 1996
Note: The interim figures given at the Association of Metropolitan Authorities conference in London on 7th November, and reported in the press, are now confirmed at higher level than first analyses indicated
[1] In the six cases where
[1]