School exclusions: The Greater Manchester schools suspending and expelling the most pupils

Schools across Greater Manchester have given out thousands of suspensions to pupils for poor behaviour, data has shown.

Analysis by the data team at our sister title NationalWorld has revealed the school in each of the city-region’s 10 local authorities expelled or suspended the most pupils in 2020-21.

In each case the total is in the hundreds, with the vast majority of them being suspensions but a few pupils also being permanently excluded.

Across England, 3,928 children were permanently excluded from school in the 2020/21 academic year - around five in every 10,000.

The most common reason for permanent exclusions was persistent disruptive behaviour, and the second most common was physically assaulting another pupil.

The number of expelled pupils across England as a whole fell by 22% from the year before, when there were 5,057 permanent exclusions.

However, suspensions increased by 13% across England. In total 352,454 children were suspended from school in 2020/21, up from 310,733 the year before. This is the equivalent of 425 pupils per 10,000.

The analysis, which includes special, primary and secondary schools, was released by the Department for Education this summer.

ManchesterWorld has looked through the Greater Manchester figures and picked out the school with the highest total for each of the 10 boroughs.

Among the 10 Greater Manchester local authorities, Manchester had the highest number of expulsions and suspensions, with 3,921. There were 38 permanent exclusions in the city, while the suspension rate is 4.3 per 100 pupils.

There were 2,944 suspensions and exclusions in Bolton and 2,704 in Tameside.