The number of ‘formal’ suspensions at Isle of Man secondary schools has more than doubled in the last 10 years.

It comes as Minister for Education, Sports and Culture, Julie Edge told the House of Keys that there were 1,505 ‘formal’ suspensions across the island’s secondary schools in the last academic year.

She said that ‘all schools are under pressure’.

Another 950 secondary school pupils were ‘informaly’ suspended during the same period (2022/23).

According to the Department of Education, Sports and Culture suspension of pupils policy and procedure, a pupil is only formaly suspended as a ‘final step in managing challenging behaviour.’

The policy states that a student should only be formally suspended in response to the most serious violation of a school’s behaviour policy, or if allowing the pupil to remain in school risks serious harm to the education or welfare of the pupil or others in school.

An informal suspension is where a student is sent home for the rest of the day, for instance, if they need a ‘cool-off period’.

Across the island’s 32 primary schools, there were 58 ‘formal’ suspensions and 114 ‘informal’ suspensions during the 2022/23 academic year.

The figures sparked some confusion when they were revealed by Ms Edge during this week’s House of Keys sitting.

Whilst the minister initially said the figures related to the number of students that had been suspended during the last academic year, it later transpired that the statistics provided to the number of suspension incidents at schools.

Douglas North MHK, David Ashford, who tabled a question on the issue, said that even if the figures related to suspension ‘sessions’, the figures were still ‘quite a large amount’

A Freedom of Information response published in January 2021 revealed the total number of days the island’s secondary school pupils spent on suspension in previous years. In 2013 there were 659 suspension days across the island’s secondary schools.

In 2017, suspended secondary school pupils spent a total of 1,187 days on suspension and in 2019 there were 951 suspension days across secondary schools. The figures provided by Ms Edge relate to the number of incidents, meaning that the total suspension days will be higher than the figures she provided.

Not taking this into account, over the past ten years, the number of suspension days have more than doubled, from 659 to 1,505.

During the House of Keys sitting, Ms Edge was asked specifically about the policies and procedures around when children should or should not be sent home and how the safeguarding of any child is ensured when an adult has not collected them.

She said that for primary schools the first parent or carer on the school system is called, if contact cannot be made they will reach out to the second parent or carer, and in rare cases they will call the third point of contact.

Primary school children cannot leave the premises without an adult.

In the case of secondary schools, Ms Edge said that whilst schools liaise with parents in the same way as primary schools, a school will only send home a child without an adult if both the parent and school are confident of that student’s safety.

Ms Edge said: ‘The expectation is that every effort will be made to ensure that a student is in school for the maximum time. However, we are all aware that some students do have difficulties and they might have alternative timetables put in place for them or they may have off-site education, depending on the student, their experience and the school. Our schools are all under pressure.

‘Budgets are finite and we are doing our best to ensure that every student progresses.’

But Mr Ashford was not reassured by Ms Edge’s response, saying: ‘I don’t believe I am the only MHK in here that will have spoken to parents where children have been sent home without any contact being made with parents across various different age ranges.’