The Leeds school that suspended pupils 950 times in just one year

The staggering number of suspensions took place at Dixon’s Unity Academy, formerly known as Swallow Hill Community College, whose leaders insist the figures were high due to work being done to improve performance at the school.

The figure was more than three times the number at the second highest suspending school in the city, and even larger than the total number of pupils on the school’s roll – suggesting some pupils had been suspended a number of times.

The statistics were released during the summer by Department for Education.

A spokesperson from the Dixons Academies Trust said: “When you are turning a school around, suspensions can be high in the first few years.

"We expect Dixons Unity to fall back in line with our other schools over time.“

Schools in Leeds suspended pupils 4,943 times, with a further two permanently excluded.

Across England, 3,928 children were permanently excluded from school in the 2020/21 academic year - around five in every 10,000.

The most common reason for permanent exclusions was persistent disruptive behaviour, and the second most common was physically assaulting another pupil.

The number of expelled pupils fell by 22 per cent from the year before.

However, suspensions increased by 13% across England. In total 352,454 children were suspended from school in 2020/21, up from 310,733 the year before. This is the equivalent of 425 pupils per 10,000.