Written question WQ95100

Suspensions are commonly known as fixed term exclusions in Wales.

The tables below are from the School Census and show the number and percentage of primary aged and secondary aged pupils who were excluded for a fixed period of time.

Data on disability is not collected in the School Census and cannot be linked to the data on exclusions. The tables below provide the number and percentage of for pupils with special educational needs (SEN) or additional learning needs (ALN) who were excluded for a fixed period of time.

The data includes all pupils in maintained nursery, primary, middle, secondary and special schools. Data for 2023/24 is not yet available.

Data for 2019/20 and 2020/21 was impacted by the closure of schools in Summer term 2020 and Spring term 2021 during the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. This resulted in fewer exclusions being reported in those years.

Table 1: Fixed term exclusions for primary aged pupils, by SEN/ALN, 2013/14 to 2017/18

Primary aged pupils

SEN/ALN

2013/14

2014/15

2015/16

2016/17

2017/18

Number of pupils

All pupils

1,003

1,117

1,027

1,464

1,536

Number of pupils

SEN/ALN only

823

961

883

1,222

1,315

Per cent of pupils

All pupils

0.4

0.4

0.4

0.5

0.5

Per cent of pupils

SEN/ALN only

1.4

1.6

1.5

2.0

2.1

Table 2: Fixed term exclusions for primary aged pupils, by SEN/ALN, 2018/19 to 2022/23

Primary aged pupils

SEN/ALN

2018/19

2019/20

2020/21

2021/22

2022/23

Number of pupils

All pupils

1,757

1,302

1,064

1,340

1,683

Number of pupils

SEN/ALN only

1,442

1,089

855

946

983

Per cent of pupils

All pupils

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.5

0.6

Per cent of pupils

SEN/ALN only

2.4

2.0

1.7

2.4

3.0

Table 3: Fixed term exclusions for secondary aged pupils, by SEN/ALN, 2013/14 to 2017/18

Secondary aged pupils

SEN/ALN

2013/14

2014/15

2015/16

2016/17

2017/18

Number of pupils

All pupils

5,812

5,844

3,720

6,281

6,561

Number of pupils

SEN/ALN only

3,319

3,375

2,486

3,459

3,763

Per cent of pupils

All pupils

3.0

3.1

2.0

3.4

3.6

Per cent of pupils

SEN/ALN only

7.3

7.5

5.6

7.8

8.5

Table 4: Fixed term exclusions for secondary aged pupils, by SEN/ALN, 2018/19 to 2022/23

Secondary aged pupils

SEN/ALN

2018/19

2019/20

2020/21

2021/22

2022/23

Number of pupils

All pupils

7,250

5,791

6,513

9,912

11,608

Number of pupils

SEN/ALN only

4,136

3,200

3,082

3,641

3,496

Per cent of pupils

All pupils

3.9

3.1

3.4

5.1

5.9

Per cent of pupils

SEN/ALN only

9.4

7.5

7.4

10.5

11.6