On BBC UK’s Breakfast show this morning, a piece on the shocking increase and overall level of temporary suspension’s and permanent exclusions in England’s schools.

There were 10 900 permanent exclusions!

They didn’t mention other parts of the UK and BBC Scotland did not cover the issue despite having had frequent reports on various supposed crises in Scottish schools based on supposed evidence from the opposition parties.

This may be why they’re not going there:

Last year in Scotland’s schools there were 10 647 temporary exclusions, down from 11 672 the previous year and nearly 40 000 (39 553) when the SNP first came to power. In the same period, permanent exclusions fell from 164 to zero.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/school-exclusion-statistics/

With ten times the population, all things being equal, you might expect then the figure for England to be around 100 000 but it was nearly a million, TEN times higher!

What might explain this?

Too big a question for me, here, but we do have more teachers and less child poverty.

Imagine it was the opposite. Imagine the media condemnation of ‘Swinney.’ So, if it it’s far better in Scotland surely the government of the day gets at least some credit?

Here’s an AI explanation with sources:

Slightly different underlying school and pupil contexts — England has higher overall segregation by income in schools (e.g., larger gaps between schools in deprived vs affluent areas), which correlates with higher exclusion risks in some disadvantaged settings. Scotland’s stricter catchment-based system results in less extreme school-level segregation, potentially reducing some pressures that lead to exclusions.

Cultural and systemic emphasis — Studies (including cross-UK comparisons from projects like Excluded Lives) point to Scotland’s lower rates stemming from explicit policy intent to reduce exclusions, contrasting with England’s trend of increases despite similar pupil challenges (e.g., poverty, SEND needs).

These differences are not just statistical—they reflect deeper philosophical approaches to discipline, inclusion, and children’s rights in education. Scotland’s model has been highlighted in research as achieving much lower rates without evidence of worse overall behaviour outcomes in many cases.

‘Lower rates stemming from explicit policy intent?’ After nearly 20 years in charge of education policy, the SNP in government?

Sources:

McCluskey et al. (2019) – “Exclusion from school in Scotland and across the UK: Contrasts and questions”

• Publisher page (British Educational Research Journal, Wiley): https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/berj.3555
  (Full article available here; DOI: 10.1002/berj.3555)
• Excluded Lives project page (University of Oxford): https://excludedlives.education.ox.ac.uk/publication/exclusion-from-school-in-scotland-and-across-the-uk-contrasts-and-questions
  (Includes summary and context from the project site)
• University of Edinburgh Research Explorer: https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/en/publications/exclusion-from-school-in-scotland-and-across-the-uk-contrasts-and
  (Additional metadata and possible PDF access)
• PDF via Semantics Scholar: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Exclusion-from-school-in-Scotland-and-across-the-UK-McCluskey-Cole/62f2e2df68731b43f83dac6a4841c7a18b3b8666
  (Often provides free PDF downloads)

This 2019 paper is a cornerstone of the cross-UK comparison, highlighting Scotland’s near-elimination of permanent exclusions versus rising rates in England.Daniels et al. / Related Excluded Lives Papers (including convergence/divergence themes, 2024)The 2024 paper I mentioned on “School exclusion policies across the UK: convergence and divergence” is authored by Gillean McCluskey (lead, as Scotland lead on the project) with contributions from the team including Harry Daniels:

• Publisher page (Oxford Review of Education, Taylor & Francis): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03054985.2024.2376609
  (Full open-access article; DOI: 10.1080/03054985.2024.2376609)
• PDF via Queen’s University Belfast repository: https://pureadmin.qub.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/614581688/School_exclusion_policies_across_the_UK_convergence_and_divergence.pdf
  (Direct free PDF)
• ResearchGate page: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/384835596_School_exclusion_policies_across_the_UK_convergence_and_divergence
  (Often allows free download requests)

For broader context from Harry Daniels:

• Editorial: “Excluded lives: a ‘home-international’ comparison of school exclusion” (2024, Special Issue introduction): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03054985.2024.2398885
  (Open access; discusses the project’s findings on UK divergences, including references to McCluskey et al.)
• Excluded Lives main project site (University of Oxford): https://excludedlives.education.ox.ac.uk/
  (Hub for all publications, reports, and updates from the ESRC-funded project led/involving Daniels, McCluskey, and others)

Many of these are from the 2019–2024 ESRC project “The Political Economies of School Exclusion Across the UK,” which consistently shows policy-driven differences explaining lower exclusion rates in Scotland.