TEENAGERS have already been suspended from Swindon schools on more than 600 occasions since the beginning of the 2014/2015 academic year.

According to figures given to the Swindon Advertiser, there have been 622 fixed-term exclusion, or suspensions, from the town’s 12 secondary schools, while 13 pupils have been permanently excluded.

Isambard Community School has excluded the most pupils – three – since the beginning of the year, but Nova Hreod topped the bill with more than 160 fixed-term exclusions.

Perhaps the strictest school was the new University Technical College (UTC), which opened in Bristol Street last September.

With an average of three days per student per fixed-term exclusion there were 34 separate suspensions and two permanent exclusions at the college, which takes cohorts for only Years 10 and 11.

Angela Barker-Dench, principal of the UTC, says they show the extent of the firm disciplinary policy.

She said: “It involved a total of 17 students and the way it works is that a student has to have a maximum five-day fixed-term exclusion before they are permanently excluded.

“We do have quite a strict behaviour policy because our vision is that we are a training ground for work, and as such we expect our students to behave like they would at work. That means arriving on time and in a well-dressed manner.

“I think there was a risk when we opened that students might think this was a soft option to alternative training provisions. In fact, it is, I think, a lot harder. We ask our students to turn up at 8.30am every day and work until 5.30pm.”

Meanwhile, at Nova Hreod Academy, two pupils have been permanently excluded and there have been 167 fixed-term exclusions since the start of the academic year, more than at any other school in Swindon.

The figures follow the dawn of a stricter regime of discipline introduced at the school in Akers Way at the beginning of the autumn term last September.

Ben Parnell, executive principal at Nova Hreod, said: “We make no apologies for these high levels of fixed-term exclusions which are part of a strategy to ensure we have disruption-free classrooms at Nova Hreod. We have received considerable parental support.”