FEWER North-East pupils are being expelled from school, despite claims by teaching unions that classroom discipline is collapsing.

There were 460 permanent exclusions across the region last year, an eight per cent fall compared to the 500 students barred in 2002/3, figures have revealed. The fall was in contrast to the six per cent increase in expulsions across England, the first rise for three years.

David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: "We know there is a rising tide of violence and disruption.

"Inevitably, headteachers are beginning to have to respond to that by excluding more pupils until such time as they understand they have to comply with the school rules."

But, in the North-East, Middlesbrough, Gateshead, Sunderland and Newcastle all recorded sharp falls in the number of expulsions in the 2003/4 school year.

In Hartlepool, Redcar and Cleveland, Stockton and South Tyneside, permanent exclusions were unchanged on 2002/3 - as they were in North Yorkshire.

Only in Darlington and Durham were expulsions up, in line with the national trend, according to the Department for Education and Science.

Ministers said the overall rise exposed the "nonsense" that heads and governors were powerless and that their decisions could be overturned easily on appeal.

They pointed to changes to the appeals procedure that had made it harder for expelled pupils to win the right to return to the same school.

Each panel had to contain a head-teacher and a governor, and pupils winning on a technicality could still be made to attend a different school.

Schools Minister Jacqui Smith said: "I fully back heads who decide to remove or prosecute anyone - parent or pupil - who is behaving in an aggressive way."

The figures reveal that North-East pupils are most likely to be expelled in Hartlepool and least likely to be banned in Darlington, despite its rise last year.

Across England, the number of exclusions rose from 9,290 in 2002/03 to 9,290 in 2003/04 - still considerably lower than the 1996/97 peak of 12,668.