Friday briefing: What’s behind the rapid rise of school suspensions in England?

Good morning.

School suspensions have been steadily rising since 2015, but in the last few years there has been a particularly sharp increase in the suspension and exclusion rate in England and it is getting worse. Using the most recent data available, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has found that up to the Easter holidays 2024 there was a 20% rise in exclusions compared with the same period the previous year.

Government figures released earlier this year revealed there were a record 787,961 suspensions in 2022-23, a 36% increase on 2021-22. And there were 9,376 permanent exclusions in 2022-23,up 44% on the previous year.

The troubling data is part of a wider crisis in “lost learning” that the report identifies. On top of the surge in suspensions, schools are facing a number of parallel issues including internal truancy, where pupils go to school but do not attend lessons, and unauthorised absences. For students, spending this much time outside the classroom can have catastrophic consequences for their attainment, mental health and life outcomes, so schools and the government are scrambling to find solutions.

To understand the underlying causes of this trend, I spoke with one of the authors of the IPPR report, Efua Poku-Amanfo, a research fellow who specialises in education. That’s right after the headlines.

Five big stories

1. Grenfell Tower | Grenfell families have criticised the final inquiry report on the disaster for failing to fully address the disproportionate impact the tragedy had on diverse and marginalised communities. The damning report on the Grenfell Tower fire was published on Wednesday and found decades of failings by central government and corporations. It concluded that all 72 deaths in the 2017 blaze were avoidable.

2. Economy | The UK needs £1tn of fresh investment over the next decade if the government is to hit its economic growth targets, a City taskforce has said. The report said the challenge was to make the UK “a competitive market in which to invest”.

3. Welfare | The Labour government has confirmed there will be a binding vote on whether to scrap the winter fuel allowance for all but the poorest pensioners, as unease grows within the party about backing the plans.

4. France | Emmanuel Macron has appointed the EU’s former Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, as prime minister of France, as he seeks to put an end to two months of political paralysis after a snap election. The French president said he had tasked Barnier with forming “a unifying government in the service of the country”.

5. Music | The Leeds indie band English Teacher have won the Mercury prize for their debut album, This Could Be Texas. Formed in 2020, the four-piece formed at Leeds Conservatoire and signed to Island records to release their first album.

In depth: ‘Poor behaviour can be a term to hide behind, when what we’re talking about are unmet needs’

A survey commissioned by the BBC found that nearly one in five teachers in England have been hit by a pupil, with one teacher describing managing behaviour in classrooms as a “never-ending battle”. Headteachers have described a culture of “non-compliance” among students, and the former head of Ofsted also commented last year on the rise of disruptive behaviour since the pandemic. There is a growing wave of anecdotal evidence indicating that behaviour seems to be getting worse and many are pointing to the years of socialisation and learning lost during Covid. A Department for Education spokesperson told the Guardian that the increase in suspensions and permanent exclusions reflects the “massive” scale of bad behaviour in schools. In the 2022-23 academic year, 48% of suspensions and 39% of exclusions were attributed to “persistent disruptive behaviour”.

Poku-Amanfo says that while there is truth to this sentiment, the question of worsening behaviour is more complex. “In many ways, lots of children have struggled to focus in school since the pandemic, which has impacted their behaviour, but I also think there needs to be a reframing of how we actually speak about young people and how we understand their behaviour,” she says. “Sometimes poor behaviour can be a term to hide behind, when actually what we’re talking about are unmet needs and if you reframe the understanding of the problem then there is a chance to use a more preventive and empathetic approach to pupils”.

Who is worst affected?

Students who are on free school meals were found to be nearly five times more likely to be permanently excluded and four times more likely to be suspended than their peers. Another study found that children with special educational needs are up to five times more likely to be excluded from school when they do not have specialist support – even with support, they are still more than twice as likely to be excluded. Students struggling with poor mental health are also identified as being at higher risk of suspension, which often further damages children’s mental health.

There is often also a racial dimension to suspensions. The disproportionate exclusion of certain ethnic minority groups from school – such as children with Black Caribbean, Roma or Irish Traveller heritage – has been a persistent problem in the English education system for years. These students are disproportionately being placed in alternative provision away from mainstream schools. “A lot of those young people have expressed that their experience of racism at school has impacted their feelings of safety and belonging, and if school doesn’t feel safe you’re not incentivised to turn up, stay and engage,” Poku-Amanfo says.

The impact of suspension

There is plenty of research and data that shows that suspended or expelled students have much worse outcomes than their peers in the short and long term. Students that have even one suspension are less likely to achieve a standard pass in GCSE English and maths and are twice as likely than their peers to be out of employment, education or training by the age of 24.

“Our analysis has shown that there is a £1.6bn cost to the state over a lifetime for a single cohort [one academic year] of permanently excluded children,” Poku-Amanfo says. “We don’t even know the full scale of the issue because we haven’t been able to necessarily capture every way that every form of lost learning changes people’s outcomes,” she adds. “So for all we know, that cost could be even greater.” The IPPR report found that students who were not in class were more vulnerable to criminal exploitation, for example through county lines drug operations.

The underlying problems

For the last decade, schools have been contending with dwindling resources and a recruitment crisis that has left the sector in a state of decline. Simultaneously, the number of children requiring support for special educational needs and disabilities has increased sharply in recent years, as has the child poverty rate and the number of students dealing with mental health issues.

“Arguably, school exclusions are being used disproportionately,” Poku-Amanfo says. “That’s not to say that they aren’t appropriate in certain circumstances, but we think that the teacher workforce and school leaders should be able to respond to children’s needs in the classroom in a way that doesn’t necessarily escalate the situation and lead to learning loss – but that requires resource and time”.

What else we’ve been reading

• Zoe Williams’s interview with James McAvoy is full of surprises about his stage and screen career – and why he thinks Ken Loach would give him a wide berth. Hannah J Davies, deputy editor, newsletters

• The Atlantic’s Olga Khazan is compelling on the “friendship paradox” – that is, everyone wants to spend more time with their friends, yet we spend more time alone than ever. One researcher puts it down to “a struggle to figure out how to communicate and connect and make time for [friends]”. Charlie Lindlar, newsletters team

• Tombs! Mountains! Coffee! Whether you’re still looking for some holiday inspo for this year, or just thinking ahead, check out Turkey travel tips from Guardian readers. Hannah

• Keanu Reeves is somehow 60, so we’ve ranked his 20 greatest films, from Bill & Ted to Point Break. Even as an avowed Speed stan, I’m surprised how high that ranks … Charlie

• Roll up, roll up! In “surely, surely not” news: Fyre festival is back. Hannah

Sport

Paris 2024 | Sammi Kinghorn won her fourth medal, a third silver, in the T53 400m wheelchair race, a day after winning gold and setting a Paralympic record in the 100m. She was joined in track and field success by Dan Pembroke, who won gold and retained his F13 javelin title with a world record throw of 74.49m.

Athletics | The family of a Ugandan athlete who died in Kenya after allegedly being set on fire by her former boyfriend has called for justice and legal action against the culprit. “I have a lot of grief because I’ve lost my daughter. I seek your help so that this person who has killed my daughter can be prosecuted,” Joseph Cheptegei, the father of Rebecca Cheptegei, told reporters at the hospital where she died.

Tennis | Aryna Sabalenka has reached her second consecutive US Open women’s singles final by beating Emma Navarro 6-3, 7-6 (2) with her usual brand of high-risk, high-reward tennis. Jack Draper has taken inspiration from Emma Raducanu’s US Open ­triumph three years ago as he looks to continue his own spectacular breakthrough run in New York before his tough semi-final against Jannik Sinner, the world No 1, on Friday.

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