Suspensions and permanent exclusions in England
Academic year 2024/25

Description of the data sets included in this release, including information on data sources, coverage, quality and any data conventions used.

Description

This page describes the data included in the ‘Suspensions and Permanent Exclusions in England: 2023/24’ accredited official statistics release’s underlying data files. This data is released under the terms of the Open Government License (opens in a new tab) (opens in a new tab) (opens in new tab) (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/) and is intended to meet at least 3 stars for Open Data (opens in a new tab) (opens in a new tab) (opens in new tab) (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/2010-to-2015-government-policy-government-transparency-and-accountability/2010-to-2015-government-policy-government-transparency-and-accountability#appendix-3-releasing-data-in-open-and-anonymised-formats).

The publication methodology, available on the publication report, should be referenced alongside this data. It provides information on the data sources, their coverage and quality as well as explaining methodology used in producing the data.

Coverage

This release provides information on exclusions in:

- state-funded primary schools
- state-funded secondary schools
- special schools (including non-maintained special schools)
- alternative provision (including pupil referral units)

The information is based on data collected via the school census

File formats and conventions

Rounding

This dataset has not had rounding or suppression applied, with the exception of ‘Suspensions and permanent exclusions by post looked after arrangements’.

Conventions

The following convention is used throughout the underlying data.

‘x’ Not available

‘z’ Not applicable.

Data files

Suspensions and permanent exclusions - by term

Filename: exc_termly_by_geography.csv
Geographic levels: Local authority; National; Regional
Time period: 2016/17 Autumn term to 2024/25 Summer term
Content summary: Number and rate of suspensions and permanent exclusions and those pupils receiving one or more suspensions by term.

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name       |  Variable description
------------------  |  ---------------------------------------------------------
education_phase     |  School Type - State-funded primary, secondary and special
headcount           |  Headcount
num_schools         |  Number of schools
one_plus_susp       |  Pupil enrolments with one or more suspension
one_plus_susp_rate  |  Pupil enrolments with one or more suspension (rate)
perm_excl           |  Permanent exclusions
perm_excl_rate      |  Permanent exclusions (rate)
susp_rate           |  Suspension (rate)
suspension          |  Suspensions

Footnotes:

1. For 2019/20 and 2020/21, while suspensions and permanent exclusions were possible throughout the academic year, pandemic restrictions will have had an impact on the numbers presented and caution should be taken when comparing across years.
