SECONDARY school exclusion rates in York and North and East Yorkshire are among the lowest in the region, according to new figures from Ofsted.

The organisation has pinpointed eight councils across the North East, Yorkshire and the Humber - Middlesbrough, Barnsley, Redcar and Cleveland, Doncaster, North Lincolnshire, Rotherham, Sheffield and North East Lincolnshire -with unusually high rates of pupil exclusions in 2015/16.

Ofsted’s regional director for the North East and Yorkshire and the Humber, Cathy Kirby, is writing to secondary headteachers to raise her concerns about their rates of fixed-period exclusions, which mean a pupil is barred from attending school for a set period of time.

But the figures for York and North Yorkshire present a much more encouraging picture.

In Middlesbrough, 12.75 per cent of all pupils were excluded, equivalent to 984 pupils being given one or more fixed period exclusions, and Barnsley had a rate of 11.23 per cent, with 1,279 given exclusions.

But only 3.3 per cent of pupils in York - or 328 youngsters - were excluded, while North Yorkshire had 3.43 per cent, or 1,249 pupils, excluded.

East Riding of Yorkshire had a rate of only 2.96 per cent, equating to a total of 583 pupils excluded.

The average rate for Yorkshire and the Humber was 5.34 per cent, while the average for England was 4.26 per cent.

In her annual report, Her Majesty’s Chief inspector Amanda Spielman said she ‘absolutely supports’ a school’s right to exclude pupils but said it must only be used when necessary, for example when their behaviour was violent, threatening towards teachers or when it affected other pupils’ learning.

She said it was never acceptable to exclude pupils, either formally or through pressure on parents, specifically to boost school performance and Ofsted inspectors would explore related reports about troublesome children being sent home on inspection days.

Cathy Kirby said:“Schools should only ever use exclusions as a last resort.

“If not properly applied, being removed from school can disrupt a child’s education and affect their future life chances.”