Your Guide to Suspensions and Permanent Exclusions
Email this pageA suspension or exclusion means that a school has decided that you are no longer allowed to attend that school. This is either for a number of days or permanently. This may be because of a series of incidents or from one very serious incident that is against the school’s rules.
Schools are only supposed to exclude pupils as a last resort and it should be because of a very serious concern about your behaviour. This means it must not be about whether you have learning difficulties or how academic you are. It’s also illegal to discriminate against a student because of things like their sex or religion.
There are two types of exclusion – suspension and permanent
What is a suspension?
You can be excluded for a specific number of school days and this is called a suspension.
What is a permanent exclusion?
A permanent exclusion is where you are told you cannot come back to school.
What is an independent review panel?
You can ask for an independent review panel to check that the decision to exclude you was fair.
Suspensions and Exclusions from Further Education settings
The Department for Education Guidance for Suspensions and Exclusions does not apply to independent schools, city technology colleges, city colleges for the technology of the arts, further education colleges, sixth form colleges, 16-19 academies or 16-19 free schools, all of which have separate suspension and permanent exclusion procedures.
This means that if you have been suspended or excluded you will need to follow the college disciplinary process. The college must have in place a transparent and clear procedure to investigate an incident which may give rise to a decision to permanently exclude a student.
What can you do?
You are entitled to know the case against you
- Ask the college to provide as much detail as possible as to the reason or the suspension or exclusion
- Write a response to the allegation and consider your actions, for example could you have acted differently or can you explain what happened and why
- Is there any information or circumstances that the college is not aware of (don’t wait for the meeting in this case - get in touch with college as soon as you learn of the exclusion).
- Consider whether you feel the college took into account your special educational needs and/or made ‘reasonable adjustments’ for you
You should have the right to appeal to a panel of governors who have had no previous involvement in, or knowledge of, the incident leading to the exclusion decision. The College will outline how to appeal the decision and who to write to.
Appeals will normally be considered on one or more of the following grounds:
- that the recommendation was based on invalid evidence or invalid conclusions;
- that new evidence has come to light since the disciplinary interview which was not considered;
- that the penalty recommended was entirely disproportionate to the misconduct which was found to have taken place;
- that the procedure was operated unfairly to the substantial disadvantage of the student.
You should read the further education policies on their Disciplinary and appeal procedures
Also in this section:
What to do if you are given a suspension
Explaining what to do if you are given a suspension from school
What to do if you are given a permanent exclusion
A permanent exclusion is where you are told you cannot come back to the school. This is also called being expelled.
What is an independent review panel?
If you do not agree with the decision of a governing board not to allow you to return to school, you can ask for an independent review panel to review the decision.