The exclusion figures were revealed during Deputy Scott Wickenden’s first Scrutiny hearing as Education and Children’s Minister.
Answering questions about the issue, Jane Lancaster-Adlam, head of inclusion in the Children, Young People, Education and Skills Department, explained that pupils could be excluded for a number of offences such as bullying, sexual misconduct, threatening behaviour, racial abuse, inappropriate use of social media, persistent disruption in class or physical assaults on adults or other children.
Exclusions can last from half a day to five consecutive days or 15 non-consecutive days.
Mrs Lancaster-Adlam said the bulk of pupils who had to be excluded came from Years 9 to 11, and that verbal abuse, threatening behaviour and physical assaults were the most common offences. The exclusions and causes of them were meticulously recorded, she said.
However, she also pointed out that a high number of those excluded were youngsters with social or mental-health difficulties.
She said: ‘We will work closely with schools to look at the reasons for exclusions.
‘We want to know why they are happening in the first place and whether the environment needs to be changed.’
The issue of bullying was also raised in a question submitted by the Jersey Youth Parliament, who asked whether head teachers had ‘the right tools to tackle discrimination’.
Deputy Wickenden said the government was committed to eliminating bullying and discrimination everywhere in education, but that different approaches to the problem were taken in different schools.
He said: ‘Head teachers and teachers know their students better than we do so we let them set up their own policies.’
But he added: ‘We want to make sure we have a consistent approach across the board, not just in how they deal with it but in how they report it.’
The committee heard that all pre-school children in Jersey now had access to 30 hours of free nursery education per week in term time, and that 907 were taking up the provision. There were 397 pupils in private nurseries and 510 in public nurseries connected to primary schools.
The minister said: ‘Parents have the flexibility to choose. It is an option for them. The funding is there.’
The Scrutiny panel also heard that the Education Department had an underspend of £964,900 in its budget during the last academic year, which was put down to delays in recruiting new staff during Covid. The panel was told that most of the gaps were among support staff rather than teachers, and that they had now been filled or were in the process of being filled.
