A staggering 28,000 children with autism are thought to have been excluded from schools in England in just one year, according to the charity Ambitious about Autism.

A survey of parents revealed that from July 2012-Aug 2013 four in 10 children with autism in England were illegally excluded from school during the 12-month period studied by the charity. If applied to all of England’s 70,785 children with autism, this would equate to  more than 28,000 illegal exclusions.

The figure was revealed when parents and carers of children with autism were surveyed for  a new report  by the charity entitled ‘Ruled Out’. It revealed that:

• Four in 10 (39%) had been subject to informal – and therefore illegal – exclusions.

• One in 10 parents whose children were illegally excluded said it happened daily.

• Nearly one in three  parents (30 %) reported being asked by schools to keep their child at home, itself a form of illegal exclusion.

• One in five parents (21%) said their child with autism had been formally excluded.

• Over half of parents (51%) had kept their child out of school for fear the school was unable to provide appropriate support.

Typical examples include requiring parents to collect their children from school at short notice, refusing to allow children to take part in social activities and school trips, asking parents not to bring their children into school, or placing a child on a part-time timetable.

While schools have a legal right to formally exclude a child when it comes to issues of child safety, the safety of  staff or other pupils, this should only be used as a last resort.

The study throws light on the problem of schools not having the right skills or resources to support children with autism, leading to law-breaking exclusions.

Jolanta Lasota, chief executive of Ambitious about Autism, said: “Asking parents to collect their children early, or putting them on part-time hours is against the law and fails to address the underlying need for schools to make reasonable adjustments to include children with autism.”

Lasota also spoke of the pressures of exclusions on families impacted by autism, for instance by preventing parents from working.

Clare Moore, a parent of a child illegally excluded from school, said she had lost count of the number of times different schools rang to ask that she keep her child at home or pick him up early. “It has had a massive impact on our family life because I had to give up work as I had to be available at short notice,” she said.

Solving the exclusion problem could involve better training for teachers and for parents to be informed of their legal rights. Although 70% of children with autism are in mainstream schools, 60% of teachers in England do not feel they have adequate training to teach children with autism.

Sign up to the Ruled Out campaign: www.ambitiousaboutautism.org.uk/ruledout

Published: 11 February 2014