The issue of school exclusion often focuses on concerns around boys. This is perhaps not surprising, given that they make up the majority of permanent exclusions in the education system.

However, research published last month by women’s charity Agenda revealed that although the total number of boys excluded from school still outnumbers girls, the rate at which girls are being excluded is increasing rapidly.

Specifically, the Agenda research cited figures from the Department for Education, which showed that between 2013 and 2018, the number of girls being permanently excluded increased by 66 per cent, whereas the number of boys being permanently excluded increased by 27 per cent.

When schools were closed owing to the pandemic, exclusions understandably dropped. But before it, the overall rates were rising again - with the government showing that in the Autumn term when schools were open, “there were 3,200 permanent exclusions in 2019-20 (up 5 per cent from 2018-19) and 178,400 suspensions (up 14 per cent).” Agenda reports this as a 7.8 per cent increase for girls and 4.2 per cent for boys.

It isn’t just exclusions themselves, either. The pattern continues with PRU referrals, with the percentage increase for boys being referred at 27 per cent and girls at 35 per cent.

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Treating girls differently 

These are some worrying trends and pose some big questions, not least: why are girls’ exclusion rates rising so rapidly - and what can we do about it?

Brenda McHugh is the co-founder of Pears Family School Alternative Provision (AP). She regularly deals with girls who have been excluded from the mainstream and end up in their setting. 

She believes a major problem is that when girls do have an issue - such as committing a violent act - the response from schools is to treat it “more” seriously than if a boy does it.

“There is a societal norm for how people respond when they see boys behave aggressively compared to when they see girls behave aggressively. It is more shocking and unexpected,” she says.

“There is an acceptance that when a boy has a rage, we respond by accepting it and tidying up afterwards. Whereas when a girl does that, she carries a stigma of ‘What kind of girl is she?’ and people find it harder to deal with.”

As such, schools move quickly into high-level responses that can quickly lead to exclusions.

One teacher speaking to Tes anonymously says this is an issue they have witnessed. They say that for smaller and straightforward incidents such as late homework, boys and girls receive similar sanctions, but his changes when the behaviour escalates.

“When the behaviour is at the more extreme end of the scale, girls definitely pick up more severe punishments,” they say. “Staff are more shocked because it’s more unusual for a girl to be violent or destructive, and the sanction they are given reflects that.” 

This problem was also picked up by the Department of Education’s own May 2019 literature review on exclusion.

“Gendered norms were also reported to affect how teachers interacted with girls when their behaviour was seen as outside acceptable norms for femininity, such as being too ‘loud’,” it said.

Given this, schools need to ensure members of staff are aware that underlying stress can be behind incidents such as fighting or verbal abuse. We need to be better at understanding that incidents involving adolescent girls may need to be treated equally to those involving boys.

“We need to adjust our expectations of behavioural norms that lead to exclusion,” adds McHugh.

Mental health issues

Of course, bad behaviour that leads to issues like this rarely happens out of thin air. That’s not to say it can’t, but more often than not there are underlying issues causing girls to act out - just as there are for boys.

A big cause of this is mental health. We know that more mental health issues are being reported now than ever before, and girls appear to be disproportionately affected.

For example, a UCL study in early 2019 of 30,000 young people aged 11-14 found that a quarter of all girls had self-reported emotional problems, compared with 11 per cent of boys. The pandemic has almost certainly made this worse, meaning the issue is likely to get worse.

Maggie Bridge, senior policy and engagement officer at Agenda, says that this makes sense given the rising tide in girls reporting mental health issues as a reason for why their behaviour dropped and led to exclusions.

“Girls and young women Agenda has spoken to often attribute their experience of exclusion from school - both formal and informal - to struggles with poor mental health,” she says.

She says this can be caused by numerous factors, such as experiences of violence, abuse, trauma and discrimination - and that these are often “not identified or addressed by professionals in their lives”, which has a knock-on effect in school.

This is further compounded by rising issues of sexual harassment for girls - as the Everyone’s Invited fallout earlier this year showed.

“A number of girls we have been in touch with describe refusing to attend or avoiding school, due to feeling unsafe and uncomfortable in an environment where they can face sexual harassment and abuse from their peers,” adds Bridge.

She notes this can mean many girls actively “self-exclude”. Although they are not classed as formally excluded, Bridge says this is another big part of the problem - and one that needs to be addressed rapidly.

“This group of girls is functionally excluded by the failure of an education system not equipped to recognise and respond to their needs.”

What can we do about it?

All of this makes for sobering reading and underlines that the issues that are driving the rise in girls being excluded cannot be fixed overnight.

However, there are things that can help.

Amy Forrester, behaviour lead at Cockermouth School in Cumbria, says schools need to get better at noticing when a girl may be more likely to have an issue - so that it is picked up sooner and can be dealt with on a lower level.

“Early intervention is key, and identifying which girls might need help early on is a crucial step in tackling the problem,” she says.

She says this can be done by spotting girls with poor emotional regulation who have friendship or trust issues, or where there are issues around attendance that start to creep in.

Bridge agrees that getting in early is huge. “Early intervention is crucial to prevent a spiral of disadvantage for girls at risk of exclusion,” she says.

This isn’t easy - it involves spotting an issue and then being able to give girls space and time to talk about what is upsetting them or things that they are processing. It’s not something that can always be done with a quick chat at the end of a lesson.

Perhaps with improved mental health provisions for schools - including funding to send senior mental health leads on training courses to improve all-school wellbeing approaches - this will improve, as more skilled staff are able to spot and diagnose issues.

Bridge adds, though, that regardless of the level of training of staff, any engagement with female pupils on issues that may be impacting their mental health must be handled with the utmost sensitivity and involve outside support from specialist women and girls organisations if required.

McHugh agrees with this and says what is especially important is to make sure that girls’ concerns are listened to and validated, as this is often cited as a source of frustration by those she deals with who felt they were not taken seriously when they did try and raise an issue.

“It’s crucial that we support girls by creating safety and trust, so the girls can begin to have a language to talk about their feelings.”

Create a supportive environment 

Andy Connick, senior leader of a PRU in the south of England, also urges schools to focus on this, as it is often an issue that his setting has to address with the girls they work with.   

“I think that it is important for students to have a space where they can discuss key issues without fear of embarrassment or misunderstanding,” he says.

“We have an hour a week of a boys/girls group to allow specific conversations to happen away from the opposite gender.”

He cites issues relating to sex and sexuality as a key example of where this helps so that issues that a school may not be aware of around sexual harassment, for example, can be picked up. “It is important to look at those issues in a space where there won’t be judgments made,” he says.

Connick also raises another interesting point: that schools should try to ensure there is better, positive communication between girls in schools on a friendship level, too, so that issues such as verbal abuse and bullying that can then lead to fights are far more infrequent.

“[It’s about] offering a space for the girls to build stronger bonds with each other,” he says. “The students will build relationships as a group but supporting the girls to begin to support each other rather than competing with each other is a big thing.”

And of course, teachers can help simply by ensuring they are there as a trusted, consistent adult in a child’s life, as Forrester outlines.

“What really makes a difference and stops these girls from dropping out of the system is forming a strong bond with that student,” says Forrester.

She admits this can be “incredibly challenging when the girl has a barrier up against the world”, but taking the time to understand there are potentially deep issues at play is key.

“You need time, trust and tenacity; never allow them to push you away. These girls often have mental health issues, and you have to be there for them when things hit rock bottom.”

Many schools will be doing much of this already and perhaps feel confident they are on top of the issues raised here or do not believe the problems raised are those affecting their female cohort.

However, the data from Agenda make clear there is a rising issue of girls being excluded that schools need to be aware of and know how to counter.

It may not change things overnight, but actions taken now could help reverse a trend that has been growing in the wrong direction for several years so that if new data is revealed, it hopefully shows a move in the right direction.