New guidance on suspensions and increase in the behaviour hub programme
The Department for Education (DfE) is signalling a significant shift in how schools should use suspensions, emphasising that only the most serious cases should lead to traditional fixed-term suspensions where pupils are sent home.
A new national framework – due to accompany the forthcoming schools white paper – will encourage structured “internal suspensions”, where pupils remain in school in a supervised setting away from their peers and continue learning. This reflects concerns that time at home can lead to pupils retreating to social media or gaming, which undermines the intended consequences of suspension and harms learning. Headteachers will retain autonomy over decisions, and serious and violent incidents will still warrant removal from the school environment. The guidance also aims to improve consistency and fairness, recognising current internal exclusion practice is “informal and inconsistently applied”.
For wider system support, the DfE has designated 93 attendance and behaviour hubs across England. These hubs are led by schools with strong practice and will form part of the RISE attendance and behaviour hubs programme, offering partnership opportunities, peer-to-peer support, leadership development, and structured CPD to strengthen behaviour and attendance strategies. Schools can join the programme to access tools, self-assessment, action planning and, where needed, enhanced support with deep-dive reviews and joint improvement planning over three terms.
It is hoped that these changes reinforce to schools the importance of structured, reflective interventions rather than home suspensions that can disproportionately impact pupils with SEND, as reflected in the suspension figures. They also create new opportunities to shape inclusive behaviour culture through hubs and professional collaboration, with a focus on maintaining learning engagement even amid behavioural challenges.
