with Coram Children’s Legal Centre
Since the pandemic, school exclusions have been rising. The government has included tackling exclusions in its Schools White Paper, though it stops short of the 2017 Timpson Exclusions Review recommendation to make schools responsible for children they exclude, and to be held to account for their educational outcomes.
But new research from Coram Children’s Legal Centre says official exclusions figures don’t reflect the true picture. As we all know, if a school wants to rid itself of a particular pupil, and it can’t quite defend an outright exclusion, there are other, more opaque, ways to achieve the same end. Coram’s research shows the extent of off-rolling practices, including internal isolation and off-site direction, are removing tens of thousands of pupils from mainstream education with minimal scrutiny or accountability.
Coram’s team has written for SNJ about its report, Fairness in school exclusions: A roadmap for change. It draws on case studies and legal casework, illustrating the scale of the problem, showing how children with the greatest level of need can lose access to education through informal exclusionary practices with little transparency or independent scrutiny…
The Government must do more to understand the scale of exclusions of children with SEND. By Coram Children’s Legal Centre
School exclusions in England are at near record highs, and will be a key benchmark for those, including the Government, seeking to measure whether or not forthcoming SEND reforms are working for children. As many parents know, however, formal permanent exclusions are only one way of removing a child from school.
A report by Coram Children’s Legal Centre (CCLC), published 21 May 2026, argues that focusing solely on formal exclusion figures obscures the expansion of less accountable practices operating outside statutory oversight. These practices, including managed moves, off-site direction, coercive home education, a range of internal exclusions practices, and part-time timetables, all have key accountability deficits and mean that in reality, many more children are excluded from school than the figures would suggest.
Which children are most often excluded?
If a child lives in poverty, if they have SEND, if they a member of a particular ethnic minority group (such as Gypsy, Roma and Traveller, Black Caribbean, or Mixed White and Black Caribbean), or if they are receiving support from children’s social care, they are significantly more likely to be excluded.
The figures relating to SEN show that in the academic year 2023/2024, 52% of all permanently excluded pupils and 45% of all temporarily excluded pupils were either receiving SEN support or had an EHCP. For primary school-aged pupils, the figure for permanent exclusions rises to 88%. These figures are shockingly high, but they obscure the true scale of this problem: none of these figures includes the relatively high numbers of pupils whose SEN is only identified after they have been excluded.
We know from our work representing and advising children, young people and families that many children and young people only receive a diagnosis or any kind of SEN intervention after an exclusion has already taken place. We see this happening in all kinds of mainstream school, and to children as young as five.
Of the pupils represented by CCLC’s school exclusions clinic whose hearings took place from January 2025 onwards, only 18% had an EHCP. However, 45% had an identified SEN for which the pupil was on a waiting list for assessment, and a further 10% had undiagnosed SEN, where additional needs had been raised by parents, social workers or other professionals, but no steps had yet been taken to assess.
How will the white paper change this?
The 2026 Department for Education white paper ‘Every Child Achieving and Thriving’ highlights the power of more inclusive learning and sets out a blueprint for achieving this, but fails to address the role of both formal and informal exclusions. The paper recognises that pupil movements between different types of education settings are not monitored well, and that the law is unclear in some areas, especially when children move into or out of alternative provision. Where exclusions are mentioned, however, it is as a benchmark for the success of inclusivity proposals.
“We will take a curious approach to identify patterns in pupil movement that could suggest off-rolling or other concerning practices, including off-site direction and managed moves, and will follow up on a targeted basis with responsible bodies to understand and challenge where there are possible concerns. We will pay particular attention to schools where SEND, FSM or demographic trends appear significantly out of sync with their local context.
Every Child Achieving and Thriving, Department for Education
Off-rolling is unacceptable in any form, and we have strong enforcement arrangements where this is confirmed to be happening. We will work to share better more timely data on pupil movement with Ofsted to strengthen its ability to identify poor practice. Where inspectors find evidence of bad practice, it will be reflected in the school’s report card and the leadership and governance evaluation will likely be graded ‘urgent improvement’ – which in turn would normally lead to intervention. Using insight from Ofsted and our regional offices, alongside the data dashboard, we will conduct an annual review that tracks how children move through the education system. This internal review will look at how offsite direction is used, how managed moves are carried out, and why children are leaving their school, including evidence on whether off-rolling is taking place.
But an education system with such high rates of exclusion in all forms is a system with a serious fault-line: proposals to increase inclusion without addressing exclusion are incomplete and risk failing the children most in need of the reforms. Even if classrooms are made more accessible, the curriculum is broadened, teaching styles are adapted, and behaviour policies are amended, if the power imbalance between schools and families is not addressed, children with complex needs will still be the most vulnerable to exclusionary practices.
What about complaints systems?
This report, and the school exclusions system in general, offers key learning for those in the DfE looking to implement the reforms in the white paper. Forthcoming reforms seek to strengthen the independent scrutiny offered by school complaints systems through the use of SEN experts (and potentially even the SENCO) on the complaints panel. But concerns about the independence of governing boards in this context and of the limited possible outcomes following an independent review panel (IRP) are well-documented in this report and elsewhere.
Parents have been able to request a SEN expert at IRP since they were introduced in 2012. Since then, however, only 0.6% of all permanent exclusions upheld by governing boards have resulted in a pupil being offered reinstatement following an independent review and subsequent reconsideration. Of this tiny number, there is no data at all about the number of pupils who, after such a drawn-out and adversarial process, do not choose to return.
What needs to change?
CCLC’s report contains 30 recommendations for the government, spanning changes to legal process for more meaningful redress, transparency measures to increase accountability, changes to guidance for greater consistency and other measures to improve the balance of power between families and schools. Key calls for reform include:
- An overhaul of governing body review, both of permanent exclusions and of other exclusionary measures, which has long been flagged as insufficiently independent or rigorous.
- Strengthening managed moves through the codification of best practice and careful consideration and scrutiny of a child’s outcomes where a permanent exclusion is cancelled.
- Greater oversight across all in-school practices that remove pupils from the classroom, to mitigate the risk of these practices being used as informal exclusions and to measure the efficacy of inclusion reforms.
- Accountability for the disproportionately higher exclusion rates for certain children, requiring governing boards and IRPs to interrogate exclusion data based on protected characteristics during review hearings.
- Giving independent review panels (IRPs) the power to reinstate pupils to redress acute systemic power imbalance.
Ultimately, scrutiny and accountability are normal and necessary functions of a system that works. A truly inclusive education system is accountable to the children, young people and families who most struggle to access it.
Post-covid, amidst a newly digitised childhood, and with a quarter of UK children living in material deprivation, children’s needs are not going away. Classrooms and schools can be made more inclusive, and the interlinked crises of behaviour and unmet need can be addressed head-on, but without sealing the cracks through which children fall, these changes will continue fail those in greatest need.
Coram has a School Exclusions Clinic and Hub for families whose child is facing school exclusion
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Also read:
- Beyond EHCPs: Why Inclusion Needs More Than a Document
- The Unacceptable Truth: 20 SEND legal rights at risk from the Government’s SEND reforms
- How health and family support systems are failing children starting school
- WEBINAR RECORDING! The implications for children’s legal rights to EHCPs and EOTAS of the Government’s SEND proposals
- When things go right: Shining a light on SEND Practitioners making a positive impact [Giveaway!]
- From suspicion to support: why the Government’s child protection reforms matter for disabled children
- Have your say on the future of transport for disabled children and young people
- Unison voices major concerns over SEND reform health plans for sick and disabled children out of school in the EOTAS consultation
- Top Tips for the EOTAS & EHCP consultation: Protect your child’s rights to statutory SEND support
- Navigating constraints: Why a former PCF chair thinks the current model is missing the mark for families
- Dear Secretary of State for Education, Lucy Powell: an Open Letter from Special Needs Jungle and SEND legal charity SOS!SEN
- Research: Disabled young people define inclusive education as “learning in the place that’s right for them”
- SEND reforms and the forgotten children at risk of exclusion
- No inclusion without tackling the “serious fault-line” of exclusions, says children’s legal charity, launching a “roadmap for change”
- Boost support for children not in school, develop EOTAS guidance, and fund schools to be needs-led, say Ofsted and CQC inspectors
- Are behaviour-tracking apps harming SEND children and their families?
- Alternative Provision: Who is it Really For?
- School-to-prison-pipeline Pt 2: The link between ADHD, autism and crime. PLUS… BOOK GIVEAWAY
- How undiagnosed SEND fuels the ‘school-to-prison’ pipeline, part one
- Why legal aid may now be available for SEND families challenging school exclusions
- How our alternative provision schools manage zero exclusions: We never give up
- Too many children arrive in AP with no needs assessment—schools need to be more curious about the “why”
- Updated exclusions and behaviour guidance and how a thoughtful school culture can avoid discriminating against learners with SEND
- Exclusion must be a last resort says EHRC as they support a family to justice over their disabled child’s treatment
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She is a rare disease & chronic pain patient advocate with Ehlers Danlos syndrome.
- Dear Secretary of State for Education, Lucy Powell: an Open Letter from Special Needs Jungle and SEND legal charity SOS!SEN - August 4, 2026
- Research: Disabled young people define inclusive education as “learning in the place that’s right for them” - July 30, 2026
- EOTAS Consultation: A further assault on children’s SEND rights with cost saving and reintegration to schools at its heart - July 15, 2026
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