Permanent and fixed-term exclusions from schools: quality report

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Context

Policy and operational

Updated guidance on Exclusion from Schools and Pupil Referral Units was issued in April 2024 and provides guidance on exclusions and appeals procedures. The procedures set out in this guidance apply to all maintained schools and PRUs and all pupils in them. It is for individual schools to determine their behaviour policies and to work with their local authority on exclusions. Differing practices operating within the guidelines will affect the varying rates across Wales.

Definitions

Types of exclusion and other definitions

Permanent exclusion

Refers to a pupil who is excluded and their name removed from the school register. This pupil would then be educated at another school or via some other form of provision.

Fixed-term exclusion

Refers to a pupil who is excluded from a school but remains on the register of that school because they are expected to return when the exclusion period is completed.

A managed move

An arrangement whereby parents/carers of pupils in danger of exclusion agree with schools and local authorities that it is in the best interests of their child that they be removed from the roll of the current school and placed in another educational establishment. Data for managed moves is not currently available.

Free School Meals (FSM)

Pupils are eligible for FSM if their parents or guardians are in receipt of certain means-tested benefits or support payments.

Transitional protection (TP) for free school meals

On 1 April 2019 the Welsh Government introduced a new transitional protection for free school meals policy. This was brought in to ensure that pupils have their free school meals protected during the Universal Credit rollout period.

This protection applies to individual pupils and will continue until the end of their current school phase, being the end of primary school or end of secondary school.

Any pupil that was eligible for free school meals on the introduction of the policy on 1 April 2019 should also be transitionally protected. In addition, any pupil that has become eligible at any point during the Universal Credit rollout under the new eligibility criteria should also be transitionally protected.

The FSM analysis in this release only includes pupils who are eligible through the means tested criteria. Those eligible through TP or UPFSM are not included.

Additional learning needs (ALN)

The ALN and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018 (the ALNET Act), the ALN Code for Wales 2021, and related regulations set out the legal framework for supporting children and young people aged 0 to 25 with ALN in Wales. Together, these form the ALN system, which has been fully implemented since September 2025 following a four-year rollout. This has replaced the special educational needs (SEN) system.

A child or young person is considered to have ALN if they have a learning difficulty or disability and need support that is additional to, or different from, the support generally available to others of the same age in early years settings, schools, or further education.

For children and young people with ALN, their needs and the support they require are recorded in a statutory Individual Development Plan (IDP). The IDP is maintained either by their education setting or by the local authority.

Changes to additional learning needs data for 2026

To ensure ALN provision status was recorded accurately and lawfully in PLASC 2026, children and young people who automatically transferred to the ALN system on 31 August 2025 but had not yet completed the ALN decision-making process and had not been issued with an IDP were recorded as ‘transferred to the ALN system and awaiting an ALN decision’.

Additional learning needs (ALN): Individual Development Plans

Individual Development Plans (IDPs) are statutory plans created under the Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018, which came into force on 1 September 2021. A learner may have either a school maintained IDP or a local authority maintained IDP.

Special educational needs (SEN)

Under the SEN system learners could have Statements, School Action or School Action Plus. The SEN system has now been replaced by the ALN system, which has been fully implemented since September 2025 following a four-year rollout.

Pupils with statements

Pupils for whom the authority maintains a statement of SEN under Part iv of the Education Act 1996. A statement may be issued by the local authority after assessment of a child’s needs.

School Action

When a class or subject teacher identify that a pupil has SEN they provide interventions. These are additional to or different from those provided as part of the school’s usual curriculum.

School Action Plus

When the class or subject teacher and the SEN Co-ordinator are provided with advice or support from outside specialists. This is so that alternative interventions additional or different to those provided for the pupil through 'School Action' can be put in place. The SEN Co-ordinator usually takes the lead although day-to-day provision continues to be the responsibility of class or subject teacher.

Quality and methodology information

Official statistics status

All official statistics should show the standards of the Code of Practice for Statistics (UK Statistics Authority).

These are accredited official statistics. They were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) in July 2010. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics.

It is Welsh Government’s responsibility to maintain compliance with the standards expected of accreditation. If we become concerned about whether these statistics are still meeting the appropriate standards, we will discuss any concerns with OSR promptly. Accreditation can be cancelled or suspended at any point when the highest standards are not maintained, and reinstated when standards are restored.

Accredited official statistics are called National Statistics in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.

Statement of compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics

Our statistical practice is regulated by the OSR. OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.

All of our statistics are produced and published in accordance with a number of statements and protocols to enhance trustworthiness, quality and value. These are set out in the Welsh Government’s Statement of Compliance.

These accredited official statistics (OSR) demonstrate the standards expected around trustworthiness, quality and public value in the following ways

Trustworthiness

The data in this release relates to all maintained schools and educated otherwise than at school (EOTAS) pupils in Wales, and is collected as part of the EOTAS and PLASC collections.

Data for maintained schools is derived from the PLASC returns supplied by schools open on census day, which is usually in January each year. The returns are authorised by headteachers and validated by local authorities. Exclusions data is collected from all maintained primary, middle, secondary and special schools.

EOTAS data is derived from returns supplied by local authorities for pupils with a EOTAS provision during census week, which is usually in January each year. The returns are authorised and validated by local authorities.

The data collection and validation are carried out between January and May.

The data have been analysed by statisticians who work under the supervision of the Welsh Government Chief Statistician to ensure that the statistics, data and explanatory material is presented impartially and objectively.

All personal data underlying these statistics are processed in accordance with the requirements of the Data Protection Act 2018.

These statistics are pre-announced on the Statistics and Research area of the Welsh Government website. Access to the data during processing is restricted to those involved in the production of the statistics, quality assurance and for operational purposes. Pre-release access is restricted to eligible recipients in line with the Code of Practice (UK Statistics Authority).

These statistics are published in an accessible, orderly, pre-announced manner on the Welsh Government website at 9:30am on the day of publication.

Quality

The published figures provided are compiled by professional analysts using the latest available data and applying methods using their professional judgement and analytical skillset. Statistics published by Welsh Government adhere to the Statistical Quality Management Strategy which supplements the Quality pillar of the Code of Practice for Statistics (UK Statistical Authority) and the European Statistical System principles of quality for statistical outputs.

PLASC and EOTAS are electronic collections of pupil and school level data. Schools record data on pupils and the school throughout the year in their Management Information System (MIS) software. This data is collated into an electronic PLASC return and submitted to the Welsh Government through DEWI, a secure online data transfer system developed by the Welsh Government. Various stages of automated validation and sense-checking are built into the process to ensure a high quality of data to inform policy making and funding.In 2023, we carried out additional validation of the data with local authorities on pupils eligible for free school meals. Please see our Chief Statistician’s update on this.

As a result, in 2024 we developed additional validation rules which helped to identify any issues with the FSM eligibility data at an earlier stage. We then worked with local authorities during the validation period to ensure that correct data was provided.

For EOTAS, we work closely with local authorities to ensure all data is validated before tables are published. Data is collated into an electronic return and submitted to the Welsh Government through DEWi, a secure online data transfer system developed by the Welsh Government. Various stages of automated validation and sense-checking are built into the process to ensure a high quality of data.

COVID-19

Due to the level of COVID-19 cases in January 2022, the 2022 census date was delayed to 15 February 2022. School closures between December 2020 and March 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic meant that the 2021 census date was delayed to 20 April 2021.

The number of exclusions were lower in the 2019 to 2020 and 2020 to 2021 academic years due to school closures during the national lockdowns in Wales in Spring / Summer 2020 and Spring 2021.

Value

These statistics are used in a variety of ways. Some examples of these are:

advice to ministers
to inform the education policy decision-making process in Wales
to inform Estyn during school inspections
to assist in research in educational attainment

This release is accompanied by an Open Document Spreadsheet which can be shared and reused widely and which complies with the Government Analysis Function guidance on Releasing statistics in spreadsheets.

The commentary and notes in the release have been developed to try to make the information as accessible as possible to the widest range of users. Furthermore, all our school statistics outputs are published in Welsh and English.

Comparability

Well-being of Future Generations Act (WFG)

The Well-being of Future Generations Act 2015 is about improving the social, economic, environmental and cultural well-being of Wales. The Act puts in place seven well-being goals for Wales. These are for a more equal, prosperous, resilient, healthier and globally responsible Wales, with cohesive communities and a vibrant culture and thriving Welsh language. Under section (10)(1) of the Act, the Welsh Ministers must (a) publish indicators (“national indicators”) that must be applied for the purpose of measuring progress towards the achievement of the Well-being goals, and (b) lay a copy of the national indicators before the National Assembly. Under section 10(8) of the Well-being of Future Generations Act, where the Welsh Ministers revise the national indicators, they must as soon as reasonably practicable (a) publish the indicators as revised and (b) lay a copy of them before the Senedd. These national indicators were laid before the Senedd in 2021. The indicators laid on 14 December 2021 replace the set laid on 16 March 2016.

Information on the indicators, along with narratives for each of the wellbeing goals and associated technical information is available in the Wellbeing of Wales report.

Further information on the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015.

The statistics included in this release could also provide supporting narrative to the national indicators and be used by public services boards in relation to their local wellbeing assessments and local wellbeing plans.