Kingston has bucked a national trend of increased exclusions with a significant drop in the number of school students expelled since 2008-9.

Across the UK, the total number of school students being expelled rose sharply between 2008-9 and 2017-18 (see below).

That was not the case in Kingston, where exclusions fell 44.23 per cent over the same period — one of the biggest falls for any local authority in Britain.

It ranked the borough seventh among local authorities showing the biggest drops in the total numbers of students expelled from school since 2008-9.

Back in 2008-9, there were a total of 1,153 exclusions in Kingston.

That number has since fallen to just 643, equating to a fall of 510 fewer students expelled from school across the borough.

The data was presented by Play Like Mum and based on Department of Education statistics.

The best-performing local authority UK-wide was South Tyneside, registering an impressive 59.54 per cent drop in exclusions between 2008-9 and 2017-18.

Across the UK, the picture was considerably less rosy, with exclusions up significantly over the selected period.

Reasons given as a cause of the exclusions throughout Britain also offered cause for concern.

For example, the number of pupils expelled for "persistent disruptive behaviour" in Britain rose from 72,387 in 2008-9 to 125,147 in 2017-18.

Cases of "physical assault against an adult" also rose sharply over the same period.

There were 7,445 cases of pupils being excluded for this in 2008-9, but that was up to 28,452 by 2017-18.

Cases of exclusions for racist abuse and verbal abuse/threatening behaviour towards another pupil both also showed increases over the same period.

At the opposite end of the spectrum to Kingston were local authorities that witnessed severe increases in pupil exclusions like Hartlepool, which registered a massive 1755.13 per cent increase.