Black Caribbean pupils are being excluded from schools in England six times more often than their white peers in some areas of England, analysis has found.

Transparency reports published by the Department for Education (DfE) in February for the 2018/19 academic year showed total permanent exclusions marginally decreased overall from 7,905 the previous year to 7,894, during which time fixed-period exclusions increased from 410,800 to 438,265.

Fixed-period exclusions are suspensions from school for a set amount of time for disciplinary reasons, according to DfE guidance.

Analysis by The Guardian found that in Cambridgeshire the rate of fixed-period exclusions for black Caribbean pupils was 6.7 times higher than that of their white British classmates.

While Cambridgeshire had a low number of Caribbean pupils, in the more ethnically diverse London boroughs of Brent, Harrow and Harringey the rate was still more than five times higher.