Weymouth and Portland school 'shock' suspensions - if you're a student, parent or teacher, what's your experience? Is it really that bad?

There's a story in the Echo today about 'shock' figures relating to school suspensions and exclusions in the Weymouth and Portland area.

They've made a Freedom of Information request to Dorset County Council to find out the scale of the problem.

According to their report, it's pretty bad, although it does say towards the end of the story that suspension can be anything from an afternoon out of school to a fortnight.

According to the Echo: "Figures showed that Weymouth and Portland pyramid are suspended four times more pupils than most other school pyramids in the county - at 441 for 2008/09 and 270 up until the end of spring term in 2009/10 - due to having four secondary schools, while many pyramids have one."

What's not clear is the length of time students were suspended, the ages of the children and the offence.

So are our schools battlegrounds? Is there a respect issue going on here? It would be interesting to know what parents, students and teachers think.