Expulsion (education)

Expulsion, exclusion or withdrawing, refers to the removal/banning of a student from a school system or university for an extensive period of time due to a student persistently violating that institution's rules, or for a single offense of appropriate severity in extreme cases. Laws and procedures regarding expulsion vary between countries and states.

If a student(s) has been expelled from two schools, then any state school is legally allowed to refuse admittance of that student. (Schools on special measures may refuse to admit a student who has been expelled from only one school.) Therefore, a student who has been expelled from two schools might be totally removed from the state education system. As a result, it is rare for a pupil to be expelled (or permanently excluded) in the UK's state sector.

The exclusion of pupils is governed by the Education Act 2002.

The Secretary of State's guidance states that exclusion is a serious step. Exclusion should be used only in response to serious breaches of a school's discipline policy and only after a range of alternative strategies to resolve the pupil's disciplinary problems have been tried and proven to have failed; and where allowing the pupil to remain in school would be seriously detrimental to the education or welfare of other pupils and staff, or of the pupil himself or herself.

In practice, a student can usually be subject to permanent exclusion for a total of five disciplinary breaches, for which the student does not have to receive formal 'warnings'. Depending on his or her offence, a child can be excluded from the school system within any range of time after his or her misdeed. Though the teaching staff may recommend a pupil to be expelled, only the headteacher is legally empowered to exclude a student; he or she is not permitted to delegate that power to another person, but if he or she is ill or otherwise unable to perform his or her duties, another staff member may become the acting headteacher and inherit the power to expel students.

When excluding a student, the headteacher must inform the pupil's parents of the duration of the exclusion (whether it be temporary or permanent), reasons for exclusion, and the procedures which a parent may take to make an appeal. The headteacher must also inform the local education authority of the circumstances surrounding permanent exclusions, fixed-term exclusions exceeding five days, and exclusions which result in a student being unable to take a public examination.

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