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Bristol School Exclusions Questioned in Council Meeting

October 19, 2025 Chopsy Baby

What was said in the meeting
Bristol school exclusion data for 2023/24

Bristol school exclusions was a concerning point for councillors in a meeting at the council house this week.

It came following an update paper presented Executive Director of the Children and Education Directorate, Hannah Woodhouse, to councillors at Children And Young People Policy Committee.

Green Party Councillor for Lawrence Hill Ward Councillor Yassin Mohamud, raised questions around the council’s own exclusion data for 2024/2025.

The data was part of a ‘performance snapshot’ collated by council officers up to 31 August 2025.

The official data for the academic year 2024/25 won’t be publicly released by the Department for Education until July 2026.

Bristol school exclusion data for Children And Young People Committee Policy

What was said in the meeting

Green Party Councillor for Lawrence Hill Ward Councillor Yassin Mohamud asked: “My query is the total school suspension rate is increased. So do we know which terms that school suspension and also which schools secondary school or the primary school?”

Executive Director of the Children and Education Directorate Hannah Woodhouse said: “We have seen an increase in suspensions in all areas and we’ve seen a reduction in exclusions but an increase in suspensions.

“So these will be fixed term suspensions within schools.

“They are in all three. So they are in primary, secondary and special. What you’re seeing there is schools responding particularly to behavior within the school. But not to extent that the child needs to find another school.

“So they’re suspending them for for a number of days. And it is something that we’re working really hard with the schools on because obviously we want to make sure that our children in school learning. They’re not disrupting other young people’s learning but that they’re safe and and within the school.

“So where you see a number of suspensions rising we will be having conversations with the school about what’s happening there. Is there any support particularly around family, schools, children that we could be offering in any case.

“But we are also seeing that nationally as a rise in suspensions within schools.”

Green Party Councillor for Lawrence Hill Ward Councillor Yassin Mohamud

Yassin Mohamud asked: “Is there any data like they collected like from term one to term six saying like that term was higher than the other term? So we can see that?”

Children and Young People Policy Committee Chair Christine Townsend said: “Quite a lot of this data comes through the Quality and Improvement Performance and we also get the names of the schools, although I think that we probably black those out here at this time.

“Secondary will be higher than primary. And we will also see some suspensions in special schools unfortunately.”

Councillor Katja Hornchen for Brislington East said: “On suspensions, I actually wanted to ask a question because I’ve have some knowledge of being on the other side of being a school teacher. And one of the things that children often get suspended for sadly is racism. And that’s an almost automatic suspension in most cases that I’ve come across.

“And I was wondering if there’s a relationship between what’s going on in the country and on Twitter. Not Twitter. They don’t watch Twitter. They watch TikTok. And racism because I have noticed that whether there is a correlation with that and if there’s something we could do about that and it’s a big question now. I don’t expect an answer.”

Children and Young People Policy Committee Chair Christine Townsend – Centre image

Christine Townsend replied: “I think it’s probably a bit early to look at the data because it’s been quite it’s a relatively short period of time. However, there is some community sort of cohesion work that is being led largely by public health.

“I’ve said we also need to be involved in that and we need to bring in our schools. so that we can find out if they are seeing an impact of the local and the national context within what’s going on in their schools and then how they’re then responding to that.

“So, it is something that’s kind of it’s on the radar, should we say.”

katja said: “I didn’t expect an answer now. I was just highlighting it as a point because I have noticed it in the last school year that that that’s been increasing and also sexism as well.”

The latest public data for school exclusions in Bristol from the Department for Education was released in July this year: