BARNSLEY schools have excluded more pupils than any other part of Yorkshire and the second most out of all schools in England, information released by the Department for Education reveals.
There were 5,235 exclusions of one day or more across the borough’s secondary schools last year. That’s equivalent to almost 46 per cent of all the borough’s secondary pupils having been excluded.
But the exclusions were actually handed to just 1,279 pupils, which works out at 11.2 per cent of the student population having been excluded for one or more days, or on one or more occasions. That’s more than two-and-a-half times the England average of 4.3 per cent.
In England only Middlesbrough has a higher proportion of individual pupils excluded (12.8 per cent).
However Barnsley schools had a much lower rate of permanent exclusions. There were 13 permanent exclusions from secondary schools in Barnsley which worked out as 0.11 per cent of all pupils - only the tenth out of the region's 15 local authority areas.
Coun Tim Cheetham, Barnsley Council's cabinet spokesman on education, said he was not unduly worried because schools across Barnsley were performing better by 'every measure'.
"It is an important tool in the management of behaviour in schools," he said. "It's certainly true to say we did have a significant problem in terms of managing discipline and behaviour in secondary schools."
Most schools in Barnsley, he said, had tended to rely on softer options like internal exclusions in the past, but most had made greater use of fixed term exclusions in recent years - where unruly pupils are sent home for a set length of time, sometimes just one day.
"I think teaching staff, parents, everybody would agree the approach we were taking previously was a little liberal, and certainly not effective," said Coun Cheetham.
"A number of schools have now taken a different approach, and in terms of standards of discipline and behaviour it has certainly made a difference. We do expect to see it start to come down, but it's not something we're particularly concerned about."
He said he was pleased to see Barnsley had fewer permanent exclusions than most of the rest of Yorkshire. "They're all Barnsley kids at the end of the day, and we've got to educate them somewhere, so to me there is an illogic to permanent exclusions. It's not something anyone wants to rush to do.
"I think the approach we've got is right, and when you look at the improvements our schools have made it's difficult to argue that it's not. Not just the academic results, but every area - behaviour in schools, parent and pupil satisfaction, feelings of safety and security and happiness are all vastly improved."
