Exclusions from school are soaring and we should all be worried

We all have anecdotes about our own experiences in the classroom, the 'naughty' children and the stressed-out teachers. We all also know just how difficult it is to be a teacher, particularly these days. The horror stories I hear from my friends in the profession make you wonder why anybody would do it. Bonding with a class and helping them to expand their minds is one thing but there is hardly any time for education these days.

Teachers have sadly become social carers, cooks, parents, bouncers, police and whatever the children in their care need. The systems have crumbled our schools and those on the front line have no choice but to step in.

So today's news that suspensions and exclusions in England have soared by a fifth in the last year is no surprise. Increasing violence, mental health issues and a devastating lack of support systems or safety nets obviously lead to chaos in classrooms. What should schools do? How do you even try and teach when all your time is spent on the 'troublemakers'?

Getting rid of them with exclusion is the easy answer. It solves a problem for that school, those teachers and the other children who can then get back to learning. Or does it? The quick-fix option must be hugely tempting but the longer term issues it creates for everyone else is mind-blowing.

Children out of school are far more likely to get worse, cause more problems and ultimately create a huge financial burden on society. Oh, and it is also worth mentioning that we are also talking about little human beings. We all know that without love, care and education - it is almost impossible for children to be happy or keep on the right path.

Surprise, surprise, children from low-income backgrounds, with special educational needs and those with mental health issues are also the most likely to miss learning. We live in a very rich country yet sit back to watch hundreds of thousands of our own children who never stood a chance.

The “alarming” numbers of children losing learning since the pandemic must be addressed, according to a paper by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) think tank and education charity The Difference.

The research explores an “exclusions continuum” to identify the formal ways children miss school – like absences and suspensions – as well as other types of lost learning “currently invisible” in official data.

Up to the Easter holidays in the 2023/24 academic year, researchers estimate there was a rise of more than 20% in suspensions and exclusions compared with the same period in the previous year.

It comes after the latest Government figures showed the number of suspensions – when a pupil is excluded from a school for a set period of time – reached a record in England in 2022/23.

The latest analysis from the IPPR and The Difference suggests 32 million days of learning were lost through suspensions and unauthorised absences in the 2022/23 academic year, up from 19 million days in 2018/19 – the last full school year before the pandemic.

Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) and chairman of the Who’s Losing Learning Solutions Council, sums it up nicely: “This sobering report on school exclusions suggests we have lost sight of what we should care about most: the wellbeing and success of those children who experience hardship of one form or another.

“For too long as a system we’ve considered the needs of these young people last rather than first. Young people have one chance at a good education and if we are to improve their attainment and their life opportunities, we must reduce exclusions of all kinds.”

We should all be worried at the numbers. We must also never forget that this is about individual children. I can guarantee every one of them has already been let down in the past, exclusion is just the final nail in their coffin - sometimes, literally.There's a new academic year, a newish government. It is time to solve many of our problems with the simple realisation that children must be our priority.