More than two-thirds of pupils expelled from secondary school in England fail to return to full-time mainstream education within a year, according to research.

Figures also suggest that many of the children who do return to schools go for more than a term without full-time education.

The research, carried out for the national charity INCLUDE, shows how far the government has to go to meet its target of providing full-time education to more than 12,000 pupils who are permanently excluded from school in England each year.

INCLUDE works to try to secure the inclusion of all young people in mainstream education, employment and training.

Professor Carl Parsons, of Canterbury Christ Church University College, who carried out the research for the charity, also found that more than a third of expelled primary school pupils do not return to full-time education within a year.

Co-ordination needed

Once they had been expelled, one in four pupils aged between 11 and 14 took over two terms to be found a new place in a mainstream school, while 57% of them were out of school for more than a term.

In the primary sector, just over half of five to seven-year-olds permanently excluded were out of school for more than a term.

The research report concludes there is an urgent need for improved co-ordination between the agencies responsible for excluded pupils.

Most social services youth offending teams, made up of social workers, police and probation officers, did not hold data about the educational status of the children they worked with.

Only one third of social services departments said they were notified by education authorities about exclusions and 13% by schools.

INCLUDE's chief executive, Martin Stephenson, said the research furthered the debate on some of the issues raised in the Audit Commission's recent report Missing Out, which said only two-thirds of local education authorities in England and Wales knew where children were six months after they were expelled from school.

He said it was important to develop effective strategies to avoid exclusion happening.

"Avoiding permanent exclusion is becoming a more realisable practical goal as strategies develop to avoid exclusion in the first place," he said.