PREMIUM: The two secondary schools with the highest suspension rates. Part 1

Don't be misled by outliers. Any school with a suspension rate above 200% will be dealing with unique challenges.

The story so far:

In a recent post, I examined this Observer article:

Strictest academy schools in England suspend 30 times more pupils than the national average

This article was a collection of bits and pieces, none of which were new, thrown together to construct a narrative about academy chains suspending too many pupils. The main “news” being reported in the article, was this:

200% suspension rates at ‘zero tolerance’ trusts in England could affect highly vulnerable children, experts warn

The suspension rate at some of England’s strictest academy schools is 30 times the national average, with experts warning that this is affecting some of the country’s most vulnerable children.

An Observer analysis of the latest Department for Education (DfE) annual data on suspensions has found that dozens of multi-academy trusts had suspension rates that far exceeded the national average in a number of their schools in 2021-22. Two of the country’s biggest trusts, Astrea and Outward Grange Academies Trust (OGAT), had schools with a suspension rate of about 200% of their pupil numbers – although some pupils were counted several times because they were suspended repeatedly – compared with a national average of 6.9%.

As I argued in that previous blog post, this was misleading. Partly this is because a national average that encompasses primary schools is not a fair benchmark for comparisons. More importantly, there were only two mainstream secondary schools in England in 2021-22 with a suspension rate above 200%, yet this story makes it sound like these rates can be seen across certain trusts. There are some special schools with suspension rates this high, or higher, but the article does not discuss those. When I wrote that previous blog post, I didn’t want to name the schools, as there appeared to be lots of people on social media keen to demonise the schools. It has now occurred to me that I could probably trust my paid subscribers with the names of the schools, and with more details of what the data shows about them, without worrying that it would be used for school shaming.

In this post, and the next, I will take a closer look at those two schools.