How to add Suspensions to a Student

Note: This guide is only applicable to Schools in Northern Ireland. Schools in England and Wales should instead refer to How to add Exclusions to a Student.

In this guide, we will show how to carry out the process of adding a Suspension to a Student. The Suspension could be a New Suspension, Continued Suspension or Expulsion.

Add a Suspension
Contact Record for the Suspension
Confirmation and Appeals Record for the Suspension
Amend or Delete a Suspension
Add an Incident Report
Add a Behaviour Entry
Report on Suspensions
Generate Automated Suspension Form

Add a Suspension

This process begins by selecting the required Student via the Students List Page and pressing View to open their Record.

Once the Student Record is open, you would then select the Behaviour Tab from the side Menu on the left.

From there, scroll down to the Suspensions panel.

To create a new Suspension, press the + icon on the top right of the panel.

This will open the Add/Edit Suspension window where the following details of the Incident are available, you need to make sure you enter these correctly;

Date of Incident – When the Incident occurred.
Staff Name – The Staff member who has decided to Suspend the Student.
Suspension Type – What kind of Suspension the Student is receiving, choose from Lunchtime, Permanent or Suspension
Reason – The Reason for the Student being Suspended.
Part Time Suspension – This allows for the Return Date and Number of Sessions for the Suspension to be adjusted without changing each other. *If selecting Part-Time” the E’s MUST BE entered manually into the Students Timetabled Classes
Include timetable in Suspension marking – If this is ticked, the E Codes will go into the Student’s Timetabled Classes within the Suspension period in addition to the statutory AM/PM periods*
Start Date – The Start Date for the Suspension.
End Date – The End Date for the Suspension.
Start Session – Whether the Suspension Starts in the Morning (AM) or Afternoon (PM).
Return Date – The Date that the Students returns to School AFTER their Suspension (if they return at all).
Sessions – How many AM and PM Sessions the Suspension lasts for, there are two sessions in a day, ten sessions in a week and each session is 0.5 days.

Important: It is crucial that the information is correct because Suspensions can only be PARTIALLY EDITED after they have been created and saved.

Suspensions can also be affected by Inset/Non Academic Days, so please check that these are correct via Config>Curriculum>Academic Days.

Once the details of the Suspension are correct, you would then need to scroll down and expand the next section – Contact Record for the Suspension.

Contact Record for the Suspension

Below is where any communication with Parents/Governors/The EA following the Incident is recorded.

Once the above sections are complete, you would lastly need to expand and complete the final section which is – Confirmation and Appeals Record for the Suspension.

Confirmation and Appeals Record for the Suspension

Note: The time at which you record the details for this section depends on if you are logging the Suspension retrospectively or as it happened.

Some Schools will record everything after the process/appeal is finished, others will record the previous sections and then return to complete the following section later once they have the details (there is no wrong method).

As and when you are ready, the final section is where you record the details of the Governing Committee meeting for hearing the Appeal.

Confirmation and Appeals Record for the Suspension

This section will change and provide different options depending on the Gov’s Decision that you select below.

Suspension Stands – The details originally entered are upheld.

Reinstatement – The Student is to be reinstated following successful Appeal/Hearing.

After all of the required information has been entered, you can now press Save & Close.

Note: You can save throughout the process as the Save and Save & Close buttons are fixed.

You should now receive a Success Message and see that the Suspension is Saved.

Amend or Delete a Suspension

If you wish to amend/add to the Suspension you can double click on it to return to the Edit Suspension screen.

You will see which areas are now non editable, which is why it is crucial to ensure they are correct as you would need to Delete and Create a new Suspension if certain details are wrong.

Details that can/cannot be edited after saving the record.

Add an Incident Report

You can now also add an Incident Report by clicking Add Report

Add a Behaviour Entry

Add Behaviour is essentially a shortcut that allows you to assign a Behaviour Event (positive or negative) to the Student.

It is not linked to the Suspension and does not affect it, but is more of an area where you can monitor the behaviour of the Student since the Suspension was added.

You will now see the Behaviour Event assigned when you next Edit the Suspension Record.

Report on Suspensions

To report on Student Suspensions go to Reports>Administration>Student Exclusions Report.

Either type in the required Student(s) names or click Find to open the Student Selector List.

Choose the Start and End Date of the Suspension and choose an Suspension Type from the drop down or leave as NOT SELECTED to report on all Suspensions.

Tick if you want to Page Break by Student.

Click Preview

You can also report on Suspensions via the School Summary Report from Reports>Administration>School Summary Report and tick Exclusions to include Suspensions

You can also download other Exclusion Reports in our Online Report Repository see How to Use the Online Report Repository

Generate Automated Suspension Form

Go to Students > Choose a Student>View >Student Details > Behaviour > Suspensions

Users can generate a populated Pupil Suspension Form for Authorised incidents from the MIS, that can be sent to Vision for review.

In the column labelled Authorisation Status, Pending status is assigned to all new records. Users can Approve the status of a record by clicking on the Pending badge.

In the Update Authorisation Status popup, users will need to enter a Comment before approving the incident, Followed by Proceed in the Confirmation popup to approve the incident.

The Authorisation Status updates to Approved. Under the Actions column, users can click on the icon to display the Authorisation Status Log popup.

For Approved records only, when a user double clicks on a row to open the Add/Edit Suspension popup, a button labelled Preview will be enabled. Clicking Preview opens the pre-populated Pupil Suspension Form.