Southampton is the worst place in the country when it comes to secondary school children being suspended, new figures have revealed.

During the last school year 2,407 youngsters were temporarily excluded – that’s a figure equivalent to almost one in four pupils at city schools.

The shocking statistics relating to the year 2009/10 were released by the Department for Education and place Southampton at the top of the list of worst offenders in the country.

The reasons for suspension included assaulting staff, racist abuse and drug and alcohol offences.

Across the county the figures are equivalent to more than 60 primary and secondary pupils being suspended each day, the figures show.

There were a total of 11,790 suspensions issued in the 2009/10 school year in primary and secondary schools across Southampton, Hampshire and Isle of Wight, which works out as more than 60 every school day.

In Southampton, the 2,870 total for primary and secondary schools represented 10.69 per cent of the entire school population, more than twice the national average of 4.46 per cent and again the highest total in the country.

A total of 867 youngsters were excluded for threatening a member of staff, 32 for racist abuse and 44 suspensions were drug or alcohol related.

There was a slight drop compared to last year in Hampshire, where there were 8,290 suspensions handed out, representing 4.97 per cent of the total school population.

Among this total, 476 students were suspended from Hampshire's schools for physically assaulting an adult and 2,173 for verbally abusing an adult.

Racist abuse accounted for 78 suspensions and 193 were for drugs or alcohol.

The total number of suspensions does not represent how many children were actually suspended, as many are likely to have been excluded more than once.

Meanwhile there was a slight drop in the number of youngsters expelled from schools.

A total of 70 were permanently excluded from Hampshire’s schools and 30 from Southampton’s, which made up a lower proportion of the total school population than in 2008/09.

Schools Minister Nick Gibb said: “With thousands of pupils being excluded for persistent disruption and violent or abusive behaviour we remain concerned that weak discipline remains a significant problem in too many of our schools and classrooms.

“Tackling poor behaviour and raising academic standards are key priorities for the coalition Government.”

Last night, as the Daily Echo went to press, Southampton City Council and Hampshire County Council had not made any comment despite requests.