Black pupils at Hackney schools are permanently excluded at twice the national rate for Black pupils, while the borough’s White pupils are excluded below the national rate for theirs.
Over the three years from 2022/23 to 2024/25, schools in Hackney permanently excluded Black pupils at a rate of 18.5 per 10,000 and White pupils at 9.3 per 10,000, according to Department for Education figures. The council did not dispute them.
Across England the figures run the other way. The national rate is 9.1 per 10,000 for Black pupils and 13.4 for White pupils.
Soraya Adejare, the council’s cabinet member for children, young people and early intervention, said: “Hackney’s high exclusion and suspension rates mean too many young people in our borough get left behind. As a new administration, we acknowledge the inequity and stark disproportionality that Hackney has experienced for many years, and are committed to dismantling those systems that uphold it.”
Suspensions
The same reversal appears in suspensions, which run on far larger numbers and are the more reliable measure.
Over the three years there were 12.8 suspensions for every 100 Black pupils at Hackney schools, against 6.7 for every 100 White pupils. The national figures are 7.4 and 12.1 respectively. Because a pupil suspended more than once is counted each time, the figures measure suspensions rather than individual children.
Put another way, Hackney’s White pupils are suspended at roughly half the national rate for White pupils, while its Black pupils are suspended at a rate more than two-thirds higher than the national rate for theirs.
Among more detailed ethnic groups, Caribbean pupils were the most affected. In 2024/25 alone they were permanently excluded at 41.4 per 10,000, against a national Caribbean rate of 21.5, and there were 20.7 suspensions for every 100 Caribbean pupils. African pupils were excluded at 16.5 per 10,000, nearly three times the national African rate of 6.0. These single-year figures rest on small numbers of pupils.
London
No other London borough permanently excluded as many Black pupils over the three years. Hackney excluded 57, Waltham Forest 41 and Croydon 40.
Hackney had the highest overall permanent exclusion rate of any London borough in both 2023/24 and 2024/25. All 50 of its permanent exclusions in 2024/25 came from its 16 secondary schools. Most of the schools with the highest exclusion numbers are academies, which the council cannot direct.
Deprivation
Deprivation and special educational needs, the usual explanations for high exclusion rates, account for less of Hackney’s exclusions than they do nationally.
They still matter. Thirty-nine of the 50 permanent exclusions in 2024/25 were of pupils eligible for free school meals, who make up 45 per cent of the borough’s roll.
But in 2024/25, pupils eligible for free school meals nationally were permanently excluded 6.4 times as often as pupils who were not. In Hackney the multiple was 4.4. The borough’s rate for pupils who were eligible was 27.0 per 10,000 against 31.6 nationally, while its rate for pupils who were not eligible was 6.2 against 4.9.
The pattern on special educational needs is the same. Hackney excluded pupils on SEN support at 33.6 per 10,000 against a national 37.5, but excluded pupils with no identified SEN at 11.2 against a national 6.4.
Both gaps narrow because Hackney excludes more of the pupils who are not disadvantaged on these measures, not because it excludes far fewer of those who are.
The published data does not break down free school meal eligibility by ethnicity, so it cannot show whether deprivation explains the gap between Black and White pupils. Asked whether it accepts that deprivation and special educational needs cannot account for the disparity, the council did not answer.
Response
Cllr Adejare said dismantling those systems meant “putting wellbeing and belonging at the heart of every classroom, helping children stay in mainstream education, and bringing these figures down”.
She added: “It also includes challenging settings where necessary to ensure all of our schools move to a space where disparities no longer exist.
“As an authority, we’ve introduced a new service dedicated to keeping children in mainstream education and — following a trend of exclusions increasing since the pandemic — are now seeing the number of exclusions go down.
“We expect to see a decrease in exclusions when figures for 2025-26 are released this academic year and will continue to work with our families and schools to lower this even further.”
The council said it had launched the first phase of the Hackney Education Alternative Learning Service (HEALS), designed to identify children losing learning earlier and intervene sooner, and had allocated an outreach and engagement officer to each school.
It said exclusion rates had plateaued between 2023/24 and 2024/25, and that figures for 2025/26, not yet published, are expected to show a decline of 20 per cent.
Published figures show permanent exclusions in Hackney rose from 33 in 2022/23 to 52 in 2023/24, then edged down to 50 in 2024/25.
The council did not answer questions on whether it collects exclusion figures by ethnicity or reports them to cabinet or a scrutiny commission, on what explains the gap between Hackney and the national picture, or on how many independent reviews of permanent exclusions it has received. Nor did it say what funding it has received through the mayor of London’s Violence Reduction Unit for its Inclusive and Nurturing Schools work, or what target and timescale it has set for closing the gap.
