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Education leaders have warned that England’s schools are facing a behavioural crisis in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, as research reveals a dramatic rise in the number of suspensions over the past five years.
The suspension rate at state secondary schools hit 17 per cent during the first two terms of the 2023-24 academic year, compared with 9 per cent during the same period in 2018-2019, according to estimates from the Institute for Public Policy Research think-tank.
The suspension rate is defined as the number of suspensions per 100 students over the two terms, with some children accounting for multiple incidents.
The study, released on Thursday, found there were 540,000 suspensions among state school pupils aged 11 to 16 over the most recent autumn and spring terms.
This was a sharp increase from the 254,000 registered five years before, according to the study, which was based on 2,000 schools, out of a total of about 3,450 schools.
As term begins this month, sector leaders said schools were struggling to address the rapid rise in poor behaviour as they grappled with tight budgets and a surge in students requiring specialist assistance.
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that limited mental health and special educational support for children during the pandemic had led to a rise in behavioural concerns.
“When you combine more complex needs with schools that have had to cut back on pastoral care and specialist support because of financial pressures, you’ve got a perfect storm,” he added.
Tom Bennett, a Department for Education adviser on behaviour management since 2015, said schools in areas with high levels of deprivation typically had pupils with more complex behavioural issues than affluent areas.
“The lockdowns led to a cohort of students who were desocialised from the behavioural habits they needed to cope with school. Who were hardest hit by this? Children from poorer areas,” he added.
Between 2019 and 2024, the number of students receiving free school meals in England rose by 89 per cent, and the number of pupils with special educational needs or disabilities (Send) increased by 38 per cent, according to official data.
Free school meals are provided for children from families receiving certain benefits. Schools and local authorities are responsible for Send assessments.
Suspension rates were consistently far higher for these groups, exceeding 45 per cent in state secondary schools in the year ending 2023 — more than three times the figure for their peers — according to Department for Education data. The DfE based the rate of suspensions on the number of suspensions registered per 100 pupils over the academic year.
It is not just the UK that has seen bad behaviour rise post-pandemic. Truancy rates increased in the US, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand between 2018 and 2022, according to OECD data.
But more recent problems have been exacerbated by a longer-term squeeze on funding per pupil under the previous government, which has disproportionately affected disadvantaged areas.
Capital funding for schools has also been cut over the past 14 years, with teachers warning that pupil safety is at risk due to an estimated £15bn in backlog maintenance costs that has left some classrooms crumbling.
Despite the pressure on core funding, a sharp rise in the number of children with autism, speech and learning difficulties and mental health conditions has required the DfE to increase its high-needs budget by more than 50 per cent over the past decade, to £10.4bn.
Luke Sibieta, research fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies think-tank, said demand for support services was rising partly because of improved recognition of some conditions as well as higher levels of extreme deprivation and limited services.
“The underlying reasons have not changed so the numbers will probably continue to go up,” he said. “It’s a huge, sustained pressure on local authorities and it will get worse unless they find a way to contain costs or provide better provision.”
Spiralling costs are a significant financial risk for councils in England, which are responsible for providing special educational support using money allocated by central government.
About one in four councils have threatened bankruptcy due to the removal of a temporary change to accounting rules in March 2026 that will force spending on special educational needs and disabilities back on to their balance sheets for the first time in more than a decade, according to a recent study by the County Councils Network and the Local Government Association.
Only 1 per cent of school leaders believe special educational needs funding is sufficient to meet the current situation, according to the National Association of Head Teachers, the school leaders’ union.
The education department said the government would promote inclusivity for Send students, as well as making a commitment to ensuring there is specialist mental health support in every school.
It added that the DfE was tackling the “root causes of the issues”, including through early intervention in mainstream schools for pupils with special educational needs, introducing free breakfast clubs in every primary, and plans to reduce child poverty.
Paul Whiteman, NAHT general secretary, said ministers’ plans to improve specialist mental health provision were “encouraging” but more needed to be done.
He added that for years there had been under-investment in Send services, and the “mismatch” between the funding available and the levels of support needed had “now passed crisis point”.