Written question WQ95103
- Asked by
- Andrew RT DaviesConservative
- To be answered by
- Cabinet Secretary for Education
- Tabled
- Due
- Answered
- Time to answer
- 12 days
Question
How many primary school students with special educational needs and disabilities were suspended in each academic year from 2014 to 2024?
Answer
Answered by Cabinet Secretary for Education
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