School exclusion records

The rule: section 51A and the July 2026 guidance

The power to exclude is in section 51A of the Education Act 2002, and the procedure in the School Discipline (Pupil Exclusions and Reviews) (England) Regulations 2012. The Department for Education’s statutory guidance, Suspension and permanent exclusion from maintained schools, academies and pupil referral units in England, including pupil movement, dated July 2026 and effective from 26 July 2026, is the document headteachers, governing boards, local authorities, academy trusts and independent review panels “must have regard” to. It applies to maintained schools, academies (including free schools), alternative provision academies and pupil referral units. The 2026 edition reflects new regulations on off-site direction applying to academies and pupil referral units, and adds clarity on keeping pupils apart for safeguarding purposes.

The recording duty is stated without exceptions. Paragraph 19: “Each disciplinary suspension and permanent exclusion must be confirmed to the parents in writing with notice of the reasons for the suspension or permanent exclusion.” Paragraph 20: “Any exclusion of a pupil, even for short periods, must be formally recorded.” Paragraph 8 closes the obvious gap: “Any time a pupil is sent home due to disciplinary reasons and asked to log on or utilise online pathways should always be recorded as a suspension.” A lunchtime suspension follows the same process, and paragraph 9 counts it as half a school day when deciding whether a governing board meeting is triggered.

Two limits run through the file. Only the headteacher (including an acting headteacher) can suspend or permanently exclude. And a pupil may be suspended for “up to a maximum of 45 school days in a single academic year”, so paragraph 15 asks headteachers to consider adopting “a reliable method for monitoring the maximum 45 days … including suspensions received from other schools”.

The headteacher’s records: decision and notices

Each exclusion should produce the following records, most of them on the day of the decision:

1. The incident and the evidence. Statements, the pupil’s account and the facts found. The headteacher must apply the civil standard of proof – “on the balance of probabilities” – and should take the pupil’s views into account and “inform the pupil about how their views have been factored into any decision made” (paragraphs 3 and 4). Write witness accounts as contemporaneous notes, dated and signed.
2. The decision. The type and length of the exclusion, the reasons, and how the headteacher considered the behaviour policy, any special educational needs or disability, and the Equality Act duties the guidance sets out.
3. The notice to parents. Paragraph 82: the headteacher “must, without delay, notify parents … of the period of the suspension or permanent exclusion and the reason(s) for it”. Paragraph 83 lists what must follow in writing: the reasons; the period, or the fact that it is permanent; the right to make representations to the governing board and how the pupil may be involved; the right to request a remote meeting; how to make representations; and, where the board must consider reinstatement, the right to attend, be represented and bring a friend.
4. The first-five-days notice. For a pupil of compulsory school age, the days on which the parent must ensure the child is not in a public place during school hours, given “at the latest, by the end of the afternoon session on the first day” (paragraph 86), with the details of any alternative provision in that notice where they can reasonably be found out in time, and otherwise without delay and no later than 48 hours before it starts (paragraphs 87 and 88).
5. The notices to others. The pupil’s social worker and, for a looked-after child, the virtual school head, “without delay” (paragraph 97); the governing board, without delay, of any permanent exclusion, any exclusion taking the pupil over five school days (or ten lunchtimes) in a term, and any that means missing a public examination or national curriculum test (paragraph 100); and the local authority, “without delay of all school exclusions regardless of the length of the exclusion” (paragraph 102), plus the pupil’s home authority for a permanent exclusion where they live elsewhere. A further suspension or a later permanent exclusion needs a new notice, and the local authority must be told without delay if the pupil has an education, health and care (EHC) plan (paragraph 91).
6. The register and census entries. The attendance code for each session, and the termly school census, through which schools “must provide information … on pupils subject to any type of suspension or permanent exclusion in the previous two terms”, with up to three reasons each (paragraph 17). The guidance’s examples of reasons include physical assault against a pupil or an adult, verbal abuse or threatening behaviour, bullying and racist abuse (paragraph 16).
7. Any cancellation. A headteacher may cancel an exclusion before the governing board meets, but must notify the parents, the board, the local authority and any social worker or virtual school head, with the reason (paragraph 13).

How the notice is sent is itself part of the record. Paragraph 84 allows written notice to be delivered by hand, left at or posted to the parents’ address, and says “notices can be given electronically if the parents have given written agreement for this kind of notice to be sent in this way”. Paragraph 92 adds that the first notification “should be in person or by telephone in the first instance”, so note who called whom and when.

The governing board’s records: representations, minutes and decision

The governing board “has a duty to consider parents’ representations about a suspension or permanent exclusion” (paragraph 116), and the clock depends on the exclusion:

• Within 15 school days of the headteacher’s notice, the board must consider and decide on reinstatement for a permanent exclusion, a suspension bringing the pupil’s total to more than 15 school days in a term, or one that means missing a public examination or national curriculum test (paragraph 119).
• Within 50 school days, if the parents make representations, for a suspension taking the total to more than five but not more than 15 school days in a term (paragraph 120).
• Five days or fewer in a term: the board must consider any representations but cannot direct reinstatement and need not meet (paragraph 125).

A maintained school’s board may delegate to a committee of at least three governors; an academy’s board may delegate to a committee, including a local governing body, if the articles allow (paragraphs 117 and 118). Parents, the headteacher, the local authority (for a maintained school or pupil referral unit), any social worker and, for a looked-after child, the virtual school head must be invited (paragraph 123). The headteacher should ask the chair of the governing board whether there are clear processes in place for considering suspensions and permanent exclusions, such as “collecting all relevant documents, anonymising them, if required, and providing them to all parties” (paragraph 105).

Paragraph 141 is the minuting standard: “The governing board should ensure that clear minutes are taken of the meeting as a record of the evidence that was considered by the governing board. These minutes should be made available to all parties on request and the record of discussion should state clearly how the decisions have been reached, which a clerk should be present for.” All parties withdraw before the decision, with only the clerk staying (paragraph 142). The board considers whether the exclusion was “lawful, reasonable, and procedurally fair” (paragraph 143). The general rules for minute taking apply, with one difference: here the minutes are evidence a review panel or tribunal may read.

The decision then goes in writing “without delay” to the parents, the headteacher and, where relevant, the local authority, social worker and virtual school head (paragraph 150). Where the board does not reinstate a permanently excluded pupil, the letter must give the date by which an independent review must be requested, where to send it, the right to a special educational needs expert and the other points in paragraph 151. Paragraph 144: “The governing board should note the outcome of its consideration on the pupil’s educational record, and copies of relevant papers should be kept with the educational record.”

Independent review, the register and the transfer of records

Parents may apply for an independent review panel (IRP) within 15 school days of the governing board’s written notice (paragraph 170); the local authority or academy trust must reject a late application, and the review “must begin within 15 school days of the day on which the parent’s application for a review was made” (paragraph 174). The panel may uphold the decision, recommend that the board reconsiders, or quash it and direct reconsideration (paragraph 222). Its written notification must include its decision and reasons and “any information that the panel has directed the governing board to place on the pupil’s educational record” (paragraph 237).

Where the panel recommends or directs reconsideration, the board “must reconvene to do so within ten school days of being given notice of the panel’s decision” (paragraph 274). If the panel has quashed the decision and the board does not offer reinstatement within those ten school days, the panel may order a budget adjustment or, for an academy, a payment of £4,000 (paragraphs 233 and 276). The board must also comply with any direction to note the outcome on the pupil’s educational record (paragraph 277).

The pupil’s name comes off the admission register only when 15 school days have passed since the parents were notified of the board’s decision without an application for review, or the parents have said in writing they will not apply, and “the school cannot backdate the deletion” (paragraphs 160 and 161). Until then, the pupil is marked with the right attendance code, such as Code E where no alternative provision is attended (paragraph 166). A deletion triggers a return to the local authority, the common transfer file goes to the next school “within 15 school days” (paragraph 167), and the designated safeguarding lead should send any child protection file as KCSIE requires (paragraph 168).

How long to keep exclusion records, and who may see them

The guidance sets a floor, not a period. Paragraph 146: discrimination claims to the First-tier Tribunal or the County Court “can be made up to six months after the discrimination is alleged to have occurred”, so “schools should retain records and evidence relating to an exclusion for at least six months in case such a claim is made”. Beyond that, the outcome and papers sit on the educational record (paragraph 144) and follow the school’s retention schedule for pupil records; set it deliberately and record it, as the record keeping in schools guide describes.

Several people have a right to see the file. A parent may request the educational record of a pupil at a maintained school, which the governing body must make available “within fifteen school days of receipt of the parent’s written request” under regulation 5 of the Education (Pupil Information) (England) Regulations 2005; academies are not covered by that regulation. Anyone, including a pupil old enough to understand the request, may make a subject access request under UK GDPR, which reaches every record about them, not only the file. The governing board must also provide, within 14 days of a request, information about pupils suspended or excluded in the last 12 months to the Secretary of State and, for maintained schools and pupil referral units, the local authority (paragraph 165).

The records serve the governing board too, and they include the pupil movements that are not exclusions: managed moves and off-site direction have their own sections in the guidance. Paragraph 127 says boards “should routinely challenge and evaluate what their school’s data indicates about pupil movement”, including permanent exclusions, removals from the register and off-site direction, and paragraph 128 asks them to look for patterns, such as high numbers of pupils with special educational needs moving. A board can only do that from complete records, and gaps are what paragraph 21 calls off-rolling: sending a pupil home “without a formal suspension regardless of whether it occurs with the agreement of parents”, or removing a pupil from the roll without following the regulations.

Where exclusion decisions are first written down

The formal file is written after the fact. The first record of most exclusions is a message. The head of year texts the deputy head from the playground: “He’s just hit another Year 9 – can we get him home?” The deputy replies from a personal phone that the head agrees and mum is coming. Two witnesses describe the incident in the year team’s group chat before anyone writes a statement. The next morning, a teacher messages the parent directly to say it might be best if he stays at home until things calm down.

Each of those is part of the exclusion record. The first exchange shows when the decision was made and by whom, which matters when only the headteacher may exclude. The group chat holds the earliest accounts of the incident, which a parent asking for everything the school holds about their child is entitled to have searched for. And the teacher’s message to the parent is, on the guidance’s own terms, the beginning of an informal exclusion: paragraph 21 lists sending a pupil home “without a formal suspension” as off-rolling, “regardless of whether it occurs with the agreement of parents”.

When a governing board, an independent review panel or a tribunal later asks how the decision was reached, those messages are the answer, and they sit on staff phones in apps the school does not run. The question for the next leadership or governing board meeting is a practical one: if a parent asked for every record of the decision to exclude their child, could the school produce the messages in which it was made, and would they match the minutes?

Questions people ask

Does a school exclusion go on your record?

Yes, a suspension or permanent exclusion goes on the pupil’s school records: the Department for Education’s statutory guidance says any exclusion “must be formally recorded”, the governing board should note the outcome of its consideration on the pupil’s educational record, and schools report exclusions through the termly school census. It is a school record, not a criminal record.

Can I request to see my child’s school records?

Yes: a parent of a pupil at a maintained school can ask in writing to see the child’s educational record, which the governing body must make available within fifteen school days under regulation 5 of the Education (Pupil Information) (England) Regulations 2005. At an academy, or for wider records, the request is a subject access request under UK GDPR, normally answered within one month; a child old enough to understand the request holds that right themselves.

Do schools get fined for exclusions?

Schools are not fined for excluding pupils, but an independent review panel that quashes a governing board’s decision may order a £4,000 budget adjustment, or for an academy an equivalent payment to the local authority, if the board does not offer to reinstate the pupil within ten school days. The DfE guidance says the payment is in addition to any funding that would normally follow a permanently excluded pupil.

What is an example of an unlawful exclusion?

Sending a pupil home on disciplinary grounds without following the formal suspension process is an unlawful exclusion, even with the parents’ agreement; the DfE’s statutory guidance treats it as off-rolling. The guidance also says it is unlawful to exclude a pupil simply because they have special educational needs or a disability the school feels unable to meet, or for academic attainment or ability.

How long does a governing board have to consider a permanent exclusion?

A governing board must consider and decide on reinstatement within 15 school days of receiving the headteacher’s notice of a permanent exclusion, under the DfE’s statutory guidance effective from 26 July 2026. Parents then have 15 school days from the board’s written decision to apply for an independent review.

Official guidance and your next step

The primary source is the DfE’s suspension and permanent exclusion guidance (July 2026, effective from 26 July 2026), read with section 51A of the Education Act 2002 and the 2012 exclusion regulations. The DfE also publishes a guide for parents and carers on behaviour, suspension and permanent exclusion, which paragraph 95 asks schools to point parents to. Local authorities often provide template letters, as paragraph 92 notes.

This guide summarises the statutory guidance for schools in England and is not legal advice; the guidance itself says it “should not be taken as a complete or definitive statement of the law”, and a contested permanent exclusion warrants proper advice.

Then do one thing: take the last three exclusions and check each file against section two – the parent notice, the five-day notice, the notices to the board and the local authority – and, for any the board considered, that the minutes show how the decision was reached.