School Suspensions and Exclusions Will Rise by 20 Percent, Says Think Tank

A think tank has predicted that suspensions and exclusions in England will have risen by more than one-fifth in the past year. Researchers from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) compared sample data from up to the Easter holidays in the 2023/24 school year and estimated that there was an increase of more than 20 percent in the number of permanent exclusions and temporary suspensions on the same period in 2022/23. It is a trend researchers said had been noticeable in recent years, with the report remarking on the “sharp rise in suspensions post-pandemic.” The analysis from the think tank, conducted with education charity The Difference, said that 32 million days of learning had been lost through suspensions, exclusions, and unauthorised absences in 2022/2023—up from 19 million days in 2018/2019, which was the last full school year before the COVID-19 lockdowns....