London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

Ban permanent exclusions from English primaries, says ex-children’s tsar

Ban permanent exclusions from English primaries, says ex-children’s tsar

Anne Longfield says ‘exclusions culture’ rewards removal of some vulnerable children from school roll

Primary schools should no longer permanently exclude pupils, and measures of wellbeing should be included alongside exam results in school league tables, according to a report by the former children’s commissioner for England.

The Commission on Young Lives, headed by Anne Longfield, argues that exclusions can be highly damaging to those affected, putting young people at risk of exploitation, serious violence and criminal activity.

The commission calls for a ban on primary school exclusions from 2026 and for greater efforts by secondary schools to reduce exclusions, with all state schools in England having to report annually on the number of children who have been excluded or moved off a school’s roll.

The report recommends that no school should receive Ofsted ratings of good or outstanding without meeting inclusion targets, while school league tables should include a pupil wellbeing measure alongside exam results.

“Look behind the headlines of the tragic deaths, acts of serious violence and criminal exploitation of our young people over recent years and so often you see a pattern of children disengaging and falling out of school and into harm,” said Longfield, who stepped down as children’s commissioner in 2021.

“Over recent years we have seen the growth of an exclusions culture that perversely rewards removing some vulnerable children from school roll. That must not continue.”

Longfield said that while exclusions did not automatically result in children becoming involved in crime or serious violence, “we have met so many school leaders, youth workers, social workers, victims and perpetrators of exploitation, parents and children who recounted how school exclusion was a trigger point,” leading to involvement in county lines, gangs or sexual exploitation.

“Five teenagers have been murdered in one London borough in the last year, and all of them killed by a teenager who had been excluded from school. Can this really be coincidental?” Longfield said.


The report highlights the case of a boy suspended 17 times while in reception class. “A system that has no real accountability for a five-year-old boy being excluded 17 times in a year, or where a vulnerable teenager is out of school for months or even years, is not a system that is working for every child,” Longfield said.

Department for Education (DfE) statistics show 1,067 primary school pupils were permanently excluded in 2018-19, accounting for 0.02% of all children at state primary schools in England. In state secondary schools more than 6,700 were excluded, or 0.2% of students enrolled.

Tom Bennett, the DfE’s behaviour adviser, said: “Permanent exclusions are incredibly rare in primary school – they exclude on average once every 10 years. They are only used when absolutely necessary, to preserve the safety and learning of students. Anyone advocating otherwise, however well meaning, is inadvertently campaigning to endanger children and staff.

“Would we insist a child who has been sexually assaulted by another child should have to remain in the school with their abuser? Of course not. Nor should we expect the school community to be exposed to that threat.”

The report also recommends that the higher proportion of children from Black Caribbean backgrounds being excluded should be addressed through new guidance and curriculum content, with the DfE advised to work with school leaders and parents on the treatment of Black children over issues such as adultification.

“The recent abhorrent treatment of Child Q, a teenage girl who was left traumatised after being strip-searched at school by Met police officers while on her period, is a recent shocking example of how adultification can happen in educational settings,” the report notes.

Lucy Nethsingha, the deputy chair of the Local Government Association’s children and young people board, said councils shared the commission’s concerns and were looking to the Queen’s speech next month for new legislation.

“Councils want to work with government to make swift changes to legislation to make the education safety net more robust, for the benefit of current and future generations of young people,” Nethsinga said.

A DfE spokesperson said suspension and exclusion were “necessary and essential behaviour management tools” for schools. “Longer term, our recently published [special needs] and alternative provision green paper set out our plans to reform alternative provision, changing the culture and practice of how settings run and best support their pupils,” the DfE said.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
French Political Turmoil Elevates Marine Le Pen as Rassemblement National Poised for Power
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
×