City Hall credits Inclusion Charter as London school exclusions fall 14%

London schools cut their exclusion rate by 14% in the last academic year, according to new figures that City Hall links to its Inclusion Charter. Suspensions fell by 7% over the same period and absenteeism by 2%.

The charter dates from 2024. Thirty of London’s boroughs support it, as do dozens of charities, and more than 730 schools, about a quarter of the capital’s total, have signed up. London’s rates of suspension and permanent exclusion are now half the national average.

Falls in Sutton and Wandsworth

Sutton has recorded a 63% fall in permanent exclusions since 2023. In Wandsworth, permanent exclusions have come down by a third.

The charter sets out four guiding principles. Schools weave diversity into what they teach, let pupils help shape school policy, offer different routes through education for different kinds of learner, and make a priority of taking children to new places and showing them new points of view.

Research carried out by the University of Strathclyde for the Mayor’s Violence Reduction Unit found that pupils at rights-respecting schools were more likely to feel they belonged and that they were safe.

Results to go to ministers

Sir Sadiq Khan said City Hall would pass the figures on to ministers at a later stage. Speaking at a Kilburn school, St Augustine’s CE, the mayor called the charter “a good example of a policy that’s been incredibly successful”. He said it was helping to make schools safer and was also leading to fewer young people being drawn into criminal gangs.

City Hall is putting £1.4 million into UNICEF UK’s Rights Respecting Schools Award to help schools apply the charter. Only London state schools can draw on the money, and only for the next two years.

Lib Peck, director of the Violence Reduction Unit, said keeping pupils in the classroom and out of harm was central to the unit’s work on cutting violence in London. She said there was still more to do so that no child missed out on learning, and that the unit wanted more schools to sign up.