This article was originally published in Children & Young People Now magazine: The big debate: Are exclusions inevitable or can we do more to reduce them? | Children & Young People Now | 1 July 2025

Children cannot learn, develop, and achieve if they are not in school and not engaged – so the post-pandemic rise in school exclusions should be deeply alarming to anyone who is paying attention.

Exclusions can cast a long shadow over a young person’s life – pupils who are suspended even once are not achieving a standard pass in GCSE English and maths on average, and around 60% of permanently excluded and multiply-suspended pupils are not earning or learning at 24. And it's the children facing the greatest challenges both inside and outside the school gates who are most at risk – children living in poverty, subject to child protection plans, with special educational needs and disabilities, or from certain ethnic minority backgrounds.

Behind every number is a child and a family. Some exclusions will always be necessary to keep schools safe – but my work at Impetus, a leading education charity, has shown me that these outcomes are not inevitable. Alongside our partners in the Who is Losing Learning? Coalition – The Difference, IPPR, and Mission 44 – we spent the last year asking education professionals what must be done to reduce the high numbers of exclusions in English schools.

Their answer was clear: schools must evolve to put inclusion at their core, so they can serve every child, irrespective of their background and needs. Many schools across the country are already striving to work in this way, but they do so despite the system, not because of it.

The crises of exclusion, attendance, and special educational needs are closely linked, and driven by similar factors. Children in contact with social services are eight times more likely to face permanent exclusion than their peers. Those facing other barriers are not far behind – children living in poverty or with special educational needs (but no Education, Health, and Care Plan) are five times more likely to be permanently excluded. Systems of support are locked behind bureaucratic thresholds, so the support children need often comes too little and too late.

Instead, schools need universal systems of support so that the learning, safety, and welfare needs of all children, but especially children facing the greatest challenges outside school, are identified and met at the earliest opportunity, preventing challenges from becoming barriers.

Inclusivity will not necessarily require schools to do more – but it will require things to be done differently. Schools must use data, including pupil experience data, to understand and develop a strategy that maps out their journey towards whole school inclusion. They must support teachers to create learning environments where every child feels included, capable, and valued, and invest in giving teachers the space, time, and recognition needed to build relationships. Confident and skilled teachers can build trust with pupils, and schools can build trust with parents – or rebuild it where it has been lost.

This future requires resources and demands Government investment in schools to enable the creation of universal systems of support that can identify and respond to routine and predictable needs early. It needs an accountability regime that rewards inclusion and supports schools to put children, not league tables, at the centre of decision-making.

Schools that make children feel welcome and supported aren’t just places for academic success – they're foundations for confident, independent futures. This is what children and their teachers need and deserve.