CYP Now - Resources: Know How - Exclusion from school

School exclusions can provoke powerful emotions. Teachers feel they need proper protection from increasingly unacceptable behaviour and some students feel that they are being unfairly denied education. PJ White gets to grips with the issues. 1. Headteachers have the power to exclude as a response to serious breaches of the school's behaviour policy. They can also exclude pupils whose presence would seriously harm their education or welfare or those of others in the school. For serious violence or violent threats, sexual abuse or assault, supplying illegal drugs or carrying an offensive weapon, a single offence can be enough to warrant exclusion.

2. Some reasons are not valid for exclusion, for example infringing uniform rules, not bringing dinner money or failing to do homework. Exclusion is not a proper response to truancy.

3. For fixed-term exclusions, up to three days is usually regarded as enough without affecting the child's education. Permanent exclusion means a child is never going back to that school. The regulations also allow for lunchtime exclusions, where a young person is banned from premises over the lunch break.

4. Open-ended exclusions, in force until a meeting can be arranged or an incident investigated, are not covered by the regulations. There are "no legal arrangements" for such indefinite exclusions. They should not happen. They do.

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