Exclusions data 2018-2020
Dear Ormiston Academies Trust,
Please treat this request for information under the FOI Act 2000. I request this information from and broken down by the following three academic years, and by term if available:
September 1, 2017 to July 31, 2018
September 1, 2018 to July 31, 2019
September 1, 2019 to March 31, 2020 (the academic year minus COVID closures)
To fulfil this request, follow this link and download a copy of the spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...
Please return a completed copy of this spreadsheet via WhatDoTheyKnow within 20 working days.
1. Please provide data as collated from the Autumn, Spring and Summer terms pertaining to the total number of (FTE) pupils in years 9–11, broken down by ethnic origin and year group
2. Please supply data as collated from the Autumn, Spring and Summer terms pertaining to the total number of:*
a. fixed term exclusions lasting more than five days, or where the cumulative total was more than five days
b. fixed term exclusions of pupils with an EHCP
c. fixed term exclusions of pupils on SEND support but without an EHCP
d. fixed term exclusions of pupils with SEN, with or without an EHC plan, and on free school meals
*I ask for these figures to be broken down by ethnic origin and year group (Y9–Y11)
3. Please supply data as collated from the Autumn, Spring and Summer terms pertaining to the total number of:*
a. permanent exclusions
b. permanent exclusion of pupils with an EHC Plan
c. permanent exclusion of pupils on SEND support but without an EHCP
d. permanent exclusions of pupils with SEND, with or without an EHCP, and on free school meals
*I ask for these figures to be broken down by ethnic origin and year group (Y9–Y11)
4. The total number (and Full Time Equivalent if different) of transfers into Alternative Provision, broken down by ethnic origin and year group (Y9–Y11)
5. The number of exclusion decisions in years 9–11 resulting in a decision of reinstatement following a governing body's review, broken down by pupil ethnicity
6. What actions, if any, you are doing as a MAT to reduce the number of exclusions/suspensions that are issued in your academies.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours faithfully,
Lucy Potter
Morning Lucy,
Thank you for your email, I have forwarded the below to the department who will be in touch within 20 working days.
Kind regards
Ormiston Academies Trust Freedom of Information Request Ref No. 3798
Dear Lucy
With reference to your request made under the Freedom of Information Act
2000 (“FOIA”) dated 17^th January 2022 for information, please treat this
email as a formal response to that FOIA request.
You requested information about pupil exclusions across the trust. Your
request asked for the details of exclusions broken down by ethnicity and a
number of other criteria such as the duration of the exclusion and SEN
status. You provided a series of eight spreadsheets in which to provide
the data for each term from Autumn 2017.
I can confirm that we do hold the data you have requested.
We have, however, estimated that the cost of complying with your request
under the Fees Regulations would exceed the appropriate limit and
therefore under the terms of Section 12 of the Act, we are not obliged to
comply.
The appropriate limit is specified in regulations and for an organisation
such as the Ormiston Academies Trust is set at £450. This represents the
estimated cost of one person working 18 hours.
I have discussed the provision of your data with the data manager at the
trust who described the amount of sorting and filtering it would require
to extract the data required to complete your request.
We estimate that the time taken to process your request would be in the
region of 28 hours to identify and populate 600 fields or so of data
required in your spreadsheet.
We are also concerned that the criteria for each field of data is so
specific that the response may include fields where very few, perhaps one
or two, instances are identified. We would need to consider carefully
whether this would, in some circumstances, allow individuals to be
identified. This is particularly important because some of the criteria
you ask for refer to Article 9 data.
The trust may be able to provide information requested if you reduce or
refine your request to bring the cost of compliance under the limit. You
may want to consider reducing the time periods asked for and perhaps
request data by year, or perhaps merge criteria in column A or the header
rows.
We hope that you will find this response satisfactory.
If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the
right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be
submitted within two months of the date of receipt of the response to your
original letter and should be addressed to: [1][email address].
Alternatively you can complain to the ICO who can be contacted here…
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Kind Regards
Data Protection Officer
Ormiston Academies Trust
References
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1. mailto:[email%20address]
Dear OAT - Data Protection Officer,
Thank you for your reply. Your response indicated that providing the information I asked for in my original request would exceed the appropriate time/cost limit. I have therefore reduced my request in scope by requesting data from academic years, rather than terms, and from years 9-11 together, rather than each year group separately. I have also amended the question re: fixed-term exclusions of 5 days or more, to just fixed-term exclusions as recorded by your academies.
My refined request and spreadsheet are below; please use the link to and download a copy of this new spreadsheet for your response. If you do not hold some of the information, or the data requested for any field risks identifying an individual pupil, please just indicate this in the relevant field on the spreadsheet. Thank you.
REFINED FOI REQUEST:
Please provide the following information, broken down by the academic years 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20:
1. The total number of pupils in years 9–11 (inclusive), broken down by ethnic origin
2. In years 9-11, the total number of*
a) fixed-term exclusions
b) fixed-term exclusions of pupils with an EHCP
c) fixed-term exclusions of pupils on SEND support but without an EHCP
d) fixed-term exclusions of pupils with SEND (with or without an EHCP) and on free school meals
*I ask for these figures to be broken down by pupil ethnicity
3. In years 9-11, the total number of*
a) permanent exclusions
b) permanent exclusions of pupils with an EHCP
c) permanent exclusions of pupils on SEND support but without an EHCP
d) permanent exclusions of pupils with SEND (with or without an EHCP) and on free school meals
*I ask for these figures to be broken down by pupil ethnicity
4. The total number of transfers into Alternative Provision from years 9-11, broken down by pupil ethnicity
5. The number of exclusion decisions in years 9–11 resulting in a decision of reinstatement following a governing body's review, broken down by pupil ethnicity
6. What actions, if any, you are doing as a MAT to reduce the number of exclusions/suspensions that are issued in your academies.
To fulfil this request, please follow this link and download a copy of the spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...
Please return a completed copy of this spreadsheet via WhatDoTheyKnow within the legal timeframe of 20 working days.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely,
Lucy Potter
Dear Lucy Potter,
We would like to acknowledge that we have received your query and a ticket
has been created.
Ormiston Academies Trust's data protection officer will be reviewing your
query and will send you a personal response.(usually within 24 hours).
To view the status of the ticket or add comments, please visit
[1]https://ormistonacademiestrust.freshdesk...
Thank you for your patience.
Sincerely,
Ormiston Academies Trust
[2]DPO Helpdesk powered by Freshdesk Support Desk 3892:875678
References
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Hi Lucy Potter,
A new OAT - DPO Helpdesk account has been created for you.
Click the url below to activate your account and select a password!
[1]https://ormistonacademiestrust.freshdesk...
If the above URL does not work try copying and pasting it into your
browser. If you continue to have problems, please feel free to contact us.
Regards,
OAT - DPO Helpdesk
[2]DPO Helpdesk powered by Freshdesk Support Desk
References
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Good morning,
Thank you for your revised request. Unfortunately the document you would
like us to complete is a google document and we do not use google accounts
and therefore can't edit the spreadsheet. Also we prefer not to click on
links in emails in case of exposure to cyber attacks.
Please could you attach a copy of the spreadsheet that can be edited in
order for us to respond.
kind regards,
OAT Data Protection Officer
On Tue, 18 Jan at 8:12 AM , Don Jones <[email address]> wrote:
Morning,
Please see the below FOI from Lucy Potter.
Dear OAT - Data Protection Officer,
I'm afraid there is no option to attach documents on WhatDoYouKnow. Their guidance states: 'It is exceptionally rare that a Freedom of Information request requires an attached document, so we don’t offer this functionality. If necessary, you can upload material to other services such as flickr.com, Google Docs, or scribd.com and then provide a link in the body of your request.'
However, rather than asking you to use or complete the Google sheet online, my request asks you to download a copy of the spreadsheet and complete it offline.
If you follow the link and click on 'File' > 'Download' then you should have the option to download it to Excel. WhatDoYouKnow is a secure platform so there should be no risk of cyber attacks.
Please can you confirm you are able to download the spreadsheet to Excel and complete it that way?
Kind regards,
Lucy
Dear Lucy Potter,
We would like to acknowledge that we have received your query and a ticket
has been created.
Ormiston Academies Trust's data protection officer will be reviewing your
query and will send you a personal response.(usually within 24 hours).
To view the status of the ticket or add comments, please visit
[1]https://ormistonacademiestrust.freshdesk...
Thank you for your patience.
Sincerely,
Ormiston Academies Trust
[2]DPO Helpdesk powered by Freshdesk Support Desk 3922:875678
References
Visible links
1. https://ormistonacademiestrust.freshdesk...
2. https://freshdesk.com/lp/customer-suppor...
Dear Ormiston Academies Trust,
Many thanks for letting me know; I'll look forward to receiving your full response.
Yours faithfully,
Lucy Potter
Sorry Lucy, I don't think I responded. That's absolutely fine.
thanks,
OAT Data Protection Officer
On Wed, 9 Mar at 8:06 PM , Lucy Potter <[FOI #823124 email]> wrote:
Dear OAT - Data Protection Officer,
I'm afraid there is no option to attach documents on WhatDoYouKnow.
Their guidance states: 'It is exceptionally rare that a Freedom of
Information request requires an attached document, so we don’t offer
this functionality. If necessary, you can upload material to other
services such as flickr.com, Google Docs, or
[1]https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=ht...
and then provide a link in the body of your request.'
However, rather than asking you to use or complete the Google sheet
online, my request asks you to download a copy of the spreadsheet and
complete it offline.
If you follow the link and click on 'File' > 'Download' then you should
have the option to download it to Excel. WhatDoYouKnow is a secure
platform so there should be no risk of cyber attacks.
Please can you confirm you are able to download the spreadsheet to Excel
and complete it that way?
Kind regards,
Lucy
Hi Lucy Potter,
Please find attached the responses to your FOI, with the following
explanatory notes:
Number of pupils
All schools have an ever-changing number of pupils on roll across an
academic year. Rather than take an arbitrary snapshot date, the numbers
provided represent the number of pupils with at least one session of
attendance in academic year.
Number of academies
During the specified timeframe, OAT welcomed new academies into the MAT.
Where an academy has not been part of OAT for at least one school day in
an academic year, it has been ignored from the pupil total. Where an
academy has spent at least one school day in the academic year as part of
OAT, their pupil numbers have been included for the entire academic year.
Ethnicity
By default, SIMS removes any ethnicity data from pupil records once
they’ve left the academy so this data has had to be combined manually with
historical records. Where a student has had more than one Ethnicity
declared whilst they have been at an academy, we have taken the most
current declaration.
“Transfers into Alternative Provision”
The definition of transfers into alternative provision records the number
of occasions that pupils have had a change in enrolment status to permit
attendance at an alternative provision establishment. We have used the
following definition of alternative provision:
"…education arranged by local authorities for pupils who, because of
exclusion, illness or other reasons, would not otherwise receive suitable
education; education arranged by schools for pupils on a fixed period
exclusion; and pupils being directed by schools to off-site provision to
improve their behaviour"
Statutory guidance for local authorities (January 2013)
We believe this answers your request fully, however if you remain
dissatisfied you have the right to an internal review. This should be
submitted within 40 working days. ALterntively you can complain direct to
the Information Commissioner:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113
email [email address]
kind regards,
OAT Data Protection and Complaints Manager
On Wed, 9 Mar at 8:06 PM , Lucy Potter <[FOI #823124 email]> wrote:
Dear OAT - Data Protection Officer,
I'm afraid there is no option to attach documents on WhatDoYouKnow.
Their guidance states: 'It is exceptionally rare that a Freedom of
Information request requires an attached document, so we don’t offer
this functionality. If necessary, you can upload material to other
services such as flickr.com, Google Docs, or
[1]https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=ht...
and then provide a link in the body of your request.'
However, rather than asking you to use or complete the Google sheet
online, my request asks you to download a copy of the spreadsheet and
complete it offline.
If you follow the link and click on 'File' > 'Download' then you should
have the option to download it to Excel. WhatDoYouKnow is a secure
platform so there should be no risk of cyber attacks.
Please can you confirm you are able to download the spreadsheet to Excel
and complete it that way?
Kind regards,
Lucy
Dear Lucy Potter,
Your ticket - Re: Fwd: FW: Freedom of Information request - Exclusions
data 2018-2020 - has been closed.
We hope that the ticket was resolved to your satisfaction. If you feel
that the ticket should not be closed or if the ticket has not been
resolved, please reply to this email.
Sincerely,
OAT - DPO Helpdesk Support Team
[1]https://ormistonacademiestrust.freshdesk...
[2]DPO Helpdesk powered by Freshdesk Support Desk 3922:875678
References
Visible links
1. https://ormistonacademiestrust.freshdesk...
2. https://freshdesk.com/lp/customer-suppor...
Dear Ormiston Academies Trust,
Many thanks for your response, and for completing the spreadsheet as requested; both much appreciated.
I have noted your explanatory notes and will keep these in mind when analysing the data.
Kind regards,
Lucy Potter
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