Guide · Updated 5 October 2026
Suspensions and the graduated response: what the 2026 exclusions guidance expects schools to show
The DfE's suspensions and exclusions guidance in force from 26 July 2026 expects schools to consider additional support and reasonable adjustments for pupils with SEND before suspending or excluding, and expects governing boards to challenge and evaluate the data. Pupils with SEMH needs are suspended at about six times the average rate, and persistent disruptive behaviour is the reason given in about half of suspensions (DfE statistics, 2024 to 25).
By Barry Reed, former founding headteacher of an SEMH and autism special school. Written from the guidance in force on 5 October 2026; check the current version on gov.uk before relying on it.
What changed in July 2026?
The revised guidance expects schools to be able to show what they did before excluding: what support was in place, whether unmet need was considered, and what reasonable adjustments were made for pupils with SEND under the Equality Act. It restates that trial managed moves are not lawful, extends the power to direct a pupil off site to academies and pupil referral units, clarifies that keeping a pupil off the premises for safeguarding reasons is not a disciplinary exclusion, and continues to expect governing boards to challenge and evaluate the data.
What does a graduated response look like on paper?
A record that shows a sequence, not a single event: the behaviour and what was happening around it, the support already in place, the assessment of need that was considered or carried out, the adjustments made, the people involved including the SENCO and parents, and the point at which the school decided that suspension was the only reasonable option. If the file shows six incident reports and nothing in between, the graduated response is not visible even if it happened.
Why do the same pupils keep being suspended?
Because the behaviour system works for most pupils and fails the same few, and the system is not built to notice. A consequence ladder treats the fifth incident like the first. A pupil whose needs show up as behaviour, with or without a diagnosis, is suspended, returns to the same lessons with the same unmet need, and is suspended again. Breaking the cycle is a leadership question: what does the graduated response actually require of us for this pupil, who owns it, and what in the classroom will be different on Monday?
What should governors monitor?
Suspensions and permanent exclusions by SEND status, disadvantage, year group, sex and ethnicity, compared with the school's own previous terms and with national figures; repeat suspensions and the pupils behind them; the reasons recorded; and the connection to restraint records, part time timetables and base use. Suspension rates in the North East are the highest in England, so this is data governors here will want to understand well.
Checklist
Ten minutes with your suspension data.
Questions a head or a chair can ask this week. No answer is a finding in itself.
- How many pupils account for half of this year's suspensions?
- For each of them, can the school show the graduated response in one file?
- Were reasonable adjustments considered and recorded before each suspension?
- Was the SENCO involved before the second suspension?
- Does the behaviour policy say what happens differently after a second or third suspension?
- Are any pupils being kept off site or on reduced timetables instead of being suspended?
- What do governors see each term, and by which groups?
- How do the school's figures compare with the term before, and with the local authority average?
Questions
Questions schools ask.
Does the guidance say a school cannot suspend a pupil with SEND?
No. What it expects is that the school can show what it did first, and that it considered the pupil's needs and reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act. Take advice on individual cases.
Is a managed move still a trial?
No, and it was not before either. A managed move is a permanent transfer agreed between schools, the pupil and parents. The 2026 guidance restates that trial moves are not lawful; a temporary placement elsewhere uses off site direction.
What is the link between suspensions and the Inclusive Mainstream Fund?
The fund lists a coherent whole school approach to managing behaviour as an example activity under a safe and respectful culture, which a school's inclusion strategy, published by 31 December 2026, could explain. Suspension data by group is the simplest evidence of whether that approach is working.
If you want a second pair of eyes
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