A cross-party group of Welsh Assembly members is warning there is not enough support for the most vulnerable students and have raised their concerns with Wales’s education minister Leighton Andrews.
The latest figures show a rise in exclusions of pupils with special needs from 4,275 in 2003 to 9,015 in 2011. Over the same period, the number of excluded pupils without special needs fell by approximately 13 per cent from 10,842 to 9,441.
Mark Isherwood, chair of the Assembly’s Cross-Party Autism Group, said: “There are concerns that while, overall, exclusions are falling, which is good news, and the number of Statements for additional learning needs have also been falling – which could be good or bad news – the number of exclusions of children with special or additional learning needs has been rising significantly.”
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