Thousands of children were excluded from schools in England last summer for assaulting adults and other pupils, figures reveal.

More than 280 were expelled for assaults on adults, with some 4,000 "fixed period" suspensions.

For attacking other pupils, there were 336 expulsions and 12,800 suspensions.

The statistics, from the Department for Education and Skills, are the first of their kind and officials say they probably understate the problem.

'Disruption'

In total there were 2,400 permanent exclusions and 80,000 "fixed term" exclusions, averaging 3.5 days, in the 2003 summer term.

The figures have been released, "experimentally", in a week when the mother of murdered schoolboy Luke Walmsley said it should be easier for schools to expel troublemakers such as the "evil bully" who stabbed her son.

The most common cause for exclusion was "persistent disruptive behaviour".

Within the totals some children offended more than once - 62,000 pupils in all being excluded for a time.

About a fifth were suspended twice or more.

DfES officials say there are concerns about the reliability of the data by local education authorities (LEAs).

"There is evidence that underreporting of exclusions took place, with a small number of LEAs submitting incomplete returns."

Only national figures have been published; they are not broken down into different areas.

But the commentary on them says LEAs with a high or low number of fixed-term exclusions tend to have a correspondingly high or low number of permanent exclusions.

Weapons checks

In line with previous findings, most of those excluded (80%) were boys and the most common age was 13 or 14 - the third year of secondary school.

Following the Luke Walmsley case, which ended with the detention for life of his 16-year-old killer, Alan Pennell, the NASUWT teachers' union repeated its call for random weapons searches in schools.

The general secretary, Chris Keates, told BBC News Online the new assault figures came as no surprise.

That was why her union's annual conference had called for this sort of national database on the scale of the problem.

This academic year, the union had organised ballots of its members in more than 40 schools on refusal to teach violent pupils, where they felt heads, governors or appeal panels had not taken tough enough action.

Ms Keates said: "It vindicates our claim that you need to back up the collection of these figures with something that isn't disruptive in schools and doesn't disrupt them, but gives you something in terms of how many pupils are carrying weapons."

A spokesperson for the DfES said that although the figures seemed large, the number of pupils involved - 62,000 - represented less than 1% of the total school population.

The government backed head teachers' rights to exclude pupils for violence but believed the number of exclusions was falling as its behaviour policies took effect.

Disaffection

Advocates for children and parents say they often see another side of the statistics.

They say disabled children, mentally ill children and some minority ethnic groups are more likely to be excluded, and that certain schools exclude more readily than others.

Martin Ward of the Secondary Heads Association said the worst-affected schools were likely to be ones in communities with "large numbers of disenchanted and disaffected people".

Many of the children concerned had been damaged by their home lives.

"That makes them more difficult to deal with and they are more likely to lack the sort of control that prevents most of us from hitting people," he said.

"Sadly, schools in these areas have to be aware that they have a significant number of children who are likely to fly off the handle."