Wales
School exclusions
Key points
- Although the numbers fluctuate from year-to-year, around 400 children are permanently excluded from school each year, mostly boys.
- The rate of permanent exclusion is much lower in Wales than in most of England but higher than in Scotland.
Graph 1: Over time
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Graph 2: Compared to Great Britain
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Definitions and data sources
All three graphs concern permanent exclusions only and do not include temporary exclusions (which are much higher but have much less of an obvious relationship with social exclusion).
The first graph shows the number of pupils permanently excluded each year. All schools in Wales are included in the statistics.
The data source for the first graph is Welsh Assembly's publications entitled Exclusions from schools. The data covers all maintained primary, secondary and special schools plus pupil referral units.
The second graph shows how, for the latest year, the rate of permanent exclusions in Wales compares with the rest of Great Britain.
Overall adequacy of the indicator: limited. Exclusions are susceptible to administrative procedures; for example, these officially recorded numbers may well under-represent the true number of exclusions if parents are persuaded to withdraw their child rather than leave the school to exclude them.