RE|qUest For DISCipLINary InFoRmAtIoN
Dear Department of Education (Northern Ireland),
I request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 all records between 1st of January 2018 and present relating to pupil disciplinary action in Northern Ireland schools, broken down by individual school and details of the action (type of action, such as suspension or expulsion and reason).
I request the datasets in Excel format.
Yours Sincerely
Andy Balfour
16 Clagan Park Aghadowey
County Londonderry
BT 51 4BD
TEL: +447817086006
Yours faithfully,
Andy Balfour
Mr Balfour
Freedom of Information Act 2000
Thank you for your email requesting information on data held regarding
pupil disciplinary action from 1st of January 2018 to present.
Your request was received on the 22/03/2022 and it will be dealt with
under the terms of the above legislation.
The leaflet attached tells you about the legislation and the procedures
the Department will follow in handling your request.
If you have any queries about this email, please contact me quoting the
reference number above in any future communications.
Kind Regards
Neil McCormick
Information Management Team
Rathgael House
Balloo Road
BANGOR
BT19 7PR
Telephone – 028 9127 7698 (DD. 69098)
Email – [1][email address]
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
Mr Balfour
I will be replying to your FOI request. Before I begin I would like clarify a few points.
School level data can be provided by each academic year. The years relevant to your request would therefore be 2017/18, 2018/19 and 2019/20 (most recent year available).
The 2019/20 academic year includes the period of school closure March - June 2020 due to Covid-19.
The data will be for suspensions only as the number of exclusions are too small to allow release at the school level.
As you asked for reasons the suspensions data will relate to the reasons for suspension occasions, and will not be number of pupils suspended, as a pupil may be suspended more than once.
The data will be subject to suppression (small numbers 1-4 are not released).
Please let me know if this is ok with you?
Kind regards
Michael Woods
Department of Education
Analytical Services Unit
Tel: 02891 279616
Ext: 59616
Dear Woods, Michael (DE),
Yes, those are the academic years I need. Are you able to tell me when the 20/21 academic year’s data's available?
Am I able to receive general expulsion data and reasons if they aren’t available at a school level?
Suspension occasions is fine.
I’m confused about suppressed data, does this mean that I can’t have information about any student who has been suspended fewer than 5 times?
Yours sincerely,
Andy Balfour
Hi
20/21 will be released after the May elections. We have not announced a date as yet, when we do I will let you know.
I will include the total number of expulsions per year and reasons.
Suppression. Sorry I confused you.
It is the number in each cell of the excel table that will subject to suppression.
To be honest I have never been asked for suspension reasons at the school level, and there might be quite a bit of suppression required.
I will run the first year early next week and see what the numbers look like.
Regards
Michael
Hi
I have attached the first year's data (2017/18).
Please let me know if these data are suitable for you, if so I will run the remaining years and issue under FOI.
Regards
Michael
Dear Woods, Michael (DE),
Yes, this is suitable.
Please sen the remaining data.
Yours sincerely,
Andy Balfour
Mr Balfour
Please find attached the Department's response to your FOI request.
If you have any questions please let me know.
Kind regards
Michael Woods
Department of Education
Analytical Services Unit
Tel: 02891 279616
Ext: 59616
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