Pupils in the East Riding excluded more than a dozen times for racist abuse last year

Anti-racism campaign group Hope Not Hate said a national rise in the number of exclusions due to racism is a concern, but that schools are clamping down on the behaviour.

Department for Education data shows schools excluded students 16 times for racist abuse in 2018-19. That was up from 13 in the previous academic year.

All were fixed-term exclusions, also known as suspensions, where a pupil is temporarily removed.

Owen Jones, head of education at Hope Not Hate, said the number of additional racist abuse exclusions was “worrying”. He said racist abuse is a concern in rural and coastal schools, which have mostly white student populations.