Pupils who go through managed moves between schools end up with better GCSE results than those who are permanently excluded, according to new research.

FFT Education Datalab found that the performance of pupils in both groups was “relatively poor” but that 17 per cent of those who went through managed moves  achieved a grade 9-4 in both GCSE English and maths.

That compared with just 6 per cent of permanently excluded pupils and 64 per cent of all pupils in England.

The research looked at 1,310 pupils in Year 9 and 1,260 in Year 10 who had experienced managed moves -  voluntary arrangements entered into between two schools as an alternative to permanent exclusions. It compared their key stage 4 outcomes to those of Year 9 and 10 pupils who were permanently excluded.

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The managed-move pupils were more likely to move to a mainstream school, while those who were permanently excluded were more likely to go into alternative provision.

School exclusions vs managed moves

There were also proportionately more girls in the managed-move sample than among permanently excluded pupils. And the managed-move pupils were less likely to be disadvantaged, to have low prior attainment, to be persistent truants or to have special educational needs, and were less likely to attend schools rated “less than good”.

However, when reweighted to take such background factors into consideration, the KS4 outcomes for pupils who went through a managed move were still better than for pupils who were permanently excluded.

A total of 44 per cent of managed-move pupils in both years 9 and 10 achieved a grade 1 to 9 in both GCSE English and maths, compared with 22 per cent of permanently excluded pupils in Year 9 and 19 per cent of those in Year 10.