Excluded pupils dropped from tables

Expelled students had remained in the head count

Education ministers in England are removing expelled pupils from schools' league table results, in response to head teachers' complaints.

The ruling that pupils would count in a school's results even if they had been expelled was introduced in 1998 but took effect fully only in last year's tables, published in November.

The effect was that if a school got rid of a pupil - who therefore got no GCSE exam passes at that school - he or she was still counted in the performance tables as having been present, depressing the school's overall result.

The government said it was aiming to stop "cosmetic" exclusions, by which schools sought to boost their rankings by removing students likely to do badly.

But head teachers reacted with outrage at the idea that they would stoop to such a practice.

Troublemakers

The general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, John Dunford, said: "Frankly, when you are thinking about excluding a pupil, the last thing on your mind is the position of your school in the performance tables."

Now the Schools Minister, Jacqui Smith, has announced that schools will no longer have to include in their results pupils expelled up to two years before taking their GCSEs at the age of 15.

Ms Smith said ministers had been aware of concern that the rule "penalised schools for dealing with troublemakers".

"We have always been clear that we support headteachers who take appropriate action to deal with troublemakers, particularly where violence is concerned," she said.

"We have listened carefully to the views of headteachers and accept that schools which have no choice but permanently to exclude pupils before the school census should not have those pupils included in the tables."

'Welcome U-turn'

Mr Dunford said: "This is a very welcome U-turn in response to the pressure heads put on the government to change this silly rule."

Ahead of the publication of the league tables last year, education department officials said the rule affected 1,546 secondary schools - almost half the total - which had expelled 3,006 pupils.

Mr Dunford estimated that the rule might have depressed the results of some schools by as much as 5% - although there is no way of identifying them in the tables.

David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: "I'm glad the government has changed its previously unacceptable stance on this issue.

"The tables will be much fairer in this particular sense this autumn."