More children in Derbyshire are being excluded for racist abuse

A leading anti-racism campaign group has warned that England’s classrooms are feeling the effects of racist opinions becoming ‘mainstream’ in wider society.

The warning came after a particularly sharp increase in racism-related exclusions, which have been going up every year over the past five years.

In the 2016-17 academic year, schools in Derbyshire handed out 102 exclusions to children who had engaged in racist abuse, which could include behaviour such as racist bullying, graffiti or derogatory remarks.

This was an increase of 46 per cent from the previous year, when 70 such exclusions were recorded.

Five years ago, the figure was 46, meaning there has been an increase of 122 per cent during that time.

Although the school population has been increasing at the same time, the rate at which racism-related exclusions have increased is higher than the rate of population growth.

This means racism exclusions are now more prevalent relative to the number of school children than they were a year ago.

The picture in Derbyshire mirrors the national trend, with schools in England handing out 4,590 exclusions for racist abuse last year, up 21 per cent from 2012-13 when it was 3,790.

Almost all of these were temporary exclusions, which are known as fixed-period exclusions.

Only 25 children were excluded permanently as a result of racist abuse, although this figure is the highest it has been for five years.

Owen Jones, head of education at campaign group Hope Not Hate, said that part of the increase could be the result of better understanding of race issues in schools, with teachers becoming more effective at spotting “more nuanced” forms of racism.

However, he also warned that wider societal attitudes and the rise of extreme content online are having an impact on younger generations.