External news

Dr Maggie Atkinson said that pupils should only be excluded for safety reasons or to prevent disruption to learning.

Schools should not exclude pupils for "minor infringements", according to a new report published by the Children's Commissioner for England.

Pupils are being excluded illegally by head teachers who are flouting the rules to boost their schools' rankings, according to a major study by the Children's Commissioner.

One of the unfortunate by-products of the system of subjecting schools to relentless external monitoring is an obsession with academic results to the exclusion of almost all else. Some schools end up subordinating almost everything to the goals of passing Ofsted examinations and to bettering their positions in league tables. Most schools do so in an honest, transparent manner but it is not surprising, although it is worrying, to learn that some less scrupulous head teachers abuse strict exclusion procedures to weed out those they consider undesirable.

Schools should never exclude pupils for "minor infringements" such as breaching school uniform codes, a Children's Commissioner for England report has warned.

Headteachers are illegally excluding difficult pupils to boost school rankings, the Children's Commissioner has said.

The Children's Commissioner Dr Maggie Atkinson believes there are illegal exclusions where children are sent out of school but nothing is recorded about their absence.