Achi news desk-
The data is published by the Scottish Government every two years, and is freely available online. The latest figures are for the 2022/23 school year, the 2020/21 data is of limited use due to the obvious impact of Covid-era school closures on exclusion rates. This means that bans appear to have increased in most cases according to the latest publications, but a more accurate picture can be seen by comparing information from 2022/23 with data from 2018/19, the last continuous year.
Finally, it is worth noting that although exclusion data is considered reliable, concerns have been raised about the use of informal exclusions in Scottish schools, particularly in relation to pupils with additional support needs or the those who are cared for by the care system. These would not be reflected in the official data.
The national picture
Across Scotland, the number of school exclusions has fallen dramatically over the past fifteen years – but before that they had been steadily increasing.
Between 2002/03 and 2006/07 the exclusion rate per 1000 pupils rose from 49 to 64, but from then on it fell year after year, usually by a significant margin.
As a result, the exclusion rate for the whole country is now 17 per 1000 pupils, which represents a reduction of almost 75%.
Prohibition rates by local authority
The first thing to notice about local authority data on bans is that there are huge variations across the country, but it’s worth adding a small caveat here: there is often a great deal of variation within councils as well as between them.
Looking at the 2022/23 data, we can see that although East Renfrewshire had 3 cases of exclusion per 1000 pupils, the figure for Aberdeenshire was ten times greater at 31 per 1000 pupils.
Local authority data over time, however, shows that many councils have seen significant reductions in exclusion rates over the past fifteen years.
In 2008, Dundee City Council reported 112 cases of exclusion per 1000 pupils. Glasgow (97), North Ayrshire (91), and Inverclyde (86) councils were not too far behind. At this stage the national figure for exclusions was 58 per 1000 pupils.
Since then the picture has changed dramatically.
After having one of the highest rates of exclusions in 2007/08 (77 cases per 1000 pupils), the data for Clackmannanshire shows that no pupils were excluded in the 2022/23 school year. Argyll and Bute has gone from 61 exclusions per 1000 pupils in 2007/08 to just 10 per 1000 pupils now. Large reductions were also recorded in Dundee, Glasgow, North Ayrshire, Inverclyde, West Dunbartonshire and West Lothian. Only Orkney reported that the levels of exclusions in 2022/23 were higher than those in 2007/08.
One of the most interesting changes in council exclusion data is that the amount of variation between councils has reduced significantly, reflecting policy changes driven by the increasing national focus on exclusion itself and on the educational experiences of groups such as young people from disadvantaged areas .
Read more:
A whole system approach is needed to reduce the number of school exclusions
Details of the ban
Government data allows us to analyze some of the details behind the bans across the 2022/23 academic year.
We know, therefore, that the overwhelming majority of school exclusions only last for a day or two – in fact, this accounts for 70% of all exclusions across the country.
We can also see how the structure of school terms affects exclusion rates, thanks to an analysis of exclusions per week across the academic year. Mapped out, this shows what many would expect: suspensions rise after holidays but start to fall ahead of them, suggesting that schools may, at least in some cases, prevent from processing a ban if a natural break in the year is about to occur.
Another important aspect of banning is the reason behind it, and the official data also gives us an insight into this area. Whether looking at actions against classmates or actions against teachers, assault without a weapon is by far the most common reason for pupils to be excluded from schools in Scotland, followed in both cases by the a threat of violence without any weapon.
Less common reasons for bans include theft and sending malicious communications, and there are a very small (but serious) number of bans for threats of sexual violence.
Analysis by feature
Another way we can try to put exclusions data into context is by analyzing it in relation to information about characteristics such as additional support needs, deprivation, ethnicity and care experience. In each case, trawling through the data highlights some obvious concerns.
ASN
Government data includes a wide range of additional support needs including dyslexia, autism spectrum disorders, hearing impairment, being a young carer, English not a first language, bereavement, being a ‘more able pupil’ and many more more. One reason why a pupil has additional support needs is that they are ‘at risk of exclusion’.
By definition, pupils in this category have additional needs that must be met in order for them to have access to education and have the same opportunities as other pupils. However, pupils with registered additional support needs are much more likely to be excluded from school than those who do not.
For pupils with no ASN, the latest data shows an exclusion rate of 7 per 1000 pupils, but for those with some form of ASN the rate is 35 per 1000 pupils.
The data can be analyzed even further to distinguish between those who spend all, none, or some of their time in mainstream classes. The latter group come out worst by far – there are 92 exclusions per 1000 pupils for those who spend some, but not all, of their time in a mainstream environment, compared to only 34 per 1000 pupils who spend all their time. time there.
The particular problem with ASN gaps is that they are a direct indictment of education policy, because it’s really simple: if large numbers of pupils with additional support needs are excluded from school, then it’s clearly not the needs of large numbers of pupils are met.
Read more:
What are the additional support needs and who has them?
Deprivation
Another key factor in analyzing exclusions is the relative deprivation of pupils. Official publications provide two main sets of data in this area.
The latest figures show that those in the most deprived 20% in Scotland are three and a half times more likely to be excluded from these than those in the country’s fifth most affluent.
It is a stark statistic based on the analysis of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD). This system divides the country into almost 7000 small areas which are then categorized based on factors such as income levels, educational provision and crime. SIMD is extremely useful but, in this context, it suffers from a key limitation: it looks at geography, not individual humans.
However, free school meals data is based on individual circumstances, and paints a strikingly similar picture which makes the pattern undeniable. Pupils who did not receive free school meals were excluded at a rate of 18 per 1000; those who did experienced an exclusion rate of 55 per 1000.
The data is absolutely clear: poorer pupils are far more likely to be excluded than richer ones.
You might be wondering why any of this is news, because of course children living in poverty are more likely to be excluded, right?
Well, fine – but wait a minute. If a pupil’s socio-economic background – for which they are not, and cannot be, responsible – is such a powerful factor in exclusions that we don’t even really think about it, then perhaps we need to ask ourselves to what extent there is a ban. disadvantaged pupils means punishing children for things that are not their fault?
Ethnicity
Exclusion data based on pupils’ ethnicity is also published by the Scottish government, although it attracts less attention for one main reason: the overwhelming majority of pupils in Scotland are identified as belonging to one ethnic group. Of the 705,528 pupils identified in the 2022/23 census, more than 70% were ‘White – Scottish’. The next two largest groups were ‘White – British’ and ‘White – Other’, and together the three accounted for almost 85% of young people in Scottish schools.
The fact that ethnicity is either ‘Unknown’ or ‘Undisclosed’ for a significant minority of young people is also problematic, while the relatively low variations between groups mean that this data is often of little interested.
But it does offer one very striking insight into exclusions across Scottish schools, namely the impact on the Gypsy/Traveller community, whose children are far more likely to be excluded than any other group.
‘Looked after’ children
Analyzing the exclusions of looked after young people turned out to be more complex than for other categories. The data for this group is collected and provided in a different way, and as a result the latest figures are not for 2022/23 but rather for 2020/21 – the year of school closures a clear impact on exclusion rates.
Given the pattern across other areas, where a decrease in 2020/21 was followed by an increase two years later, exclusion figures for looked after children may show an increase when they become available later this year; however, the overall trend may still be one of steady decline.
In 2009/10, the exclusion rate among all pupils was 45 per 1000, but for looked after pupils it was 397 per 1000. That is not a typo.
Read more:
Agenda: We must end exclusions for children with care experience
Since then, the figure has dropped significantly and, in 2018/19, it was 152 per 1000 pupils. This is obviously a very significant reduction, but it is still almost seven times the exclusion rate recorded for pupils who are not looked after.
In Scotland, the recent independent care review stated that the ‘formal and informal exclusion of children with care experience from school must end’, but an investigation by Who Cares? Scotland found that most councils have not set a target date to achieve this. A careful analysis of the available data also reveals that some, but not all, young people with experience of care receive specific additional support on that basis.
Finally, we should note that current data does not actually relate to young people who have ‘experienced care’ – rather, it focuses on those who are classified as ‘receiving care’. The gap between the definitions for these terms has significant implications moving forward.
