Sir David Bell unveiled the findings of his review of antisemitism in schools last month, commissioned after the number of antisemitic incidents reported in schools grew to double the levels seen before 2023.
The government accepted all 27 recommendations that he put forward to tackle the issue.
One of his recommendations was that schools’ and colleges’ recording systems should include a specific category for antisemitic incidents. Within this, they should also record the nature and type of incident.
Currently antisemitic incidents in schools may be recorded under racism, the review says, “making it difficult to establish their prevalence and identify trends over time”.
The NEU teaching union welcomed a strengthened focus on antisemitism, but said it was “concerned that addressing antisemitism without an equally clear commitment to tackling all forms of racism risks creating a hierarchy of racism”.
So what are schools currently expected to record? And what will the new category mean for them?
What incidents do schools currently record?
Under the Equality Act 2010, all public bodies are required to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination and harassment of people with protected characteristics, which include religion, race, sex, sexual orientation and more.
As part of their safeguarding policies and anti-bullying strategies, schools and trusts will set out what kind of incidents they record.
The Department for Education collects data on suspensions and permanent exclusions from schools with racist abuse included as a category, Philip Wood, partner at law firm Browne Jacobson, explains - but this is not currently sub-categorised into types of racism.
“For other behaviour incidents with lower levels of internal disciplinary action, such as detentions or letters sent to parents, schools will record these but data may be limited to descriptions of what happened and action taken,” he says.
“Coding may be used to distinguish types of behaviour incidents, and many school’s and trusts’ behaviour reporting systems are set up with categories similar to those used by the DfE for suspensions or exclusions - although very few will currently be sub-categorising any data related to types of racist abuse.”
What will change about how incidents are recorded?
The government says it will work with schools so they are able to record antisemitic incidents “as a specific category or sub-category” by the end of the 2027-28 school year.
Serious hate incidents and hate crimes should be reported to the police. Bullying guidance will be updated to encourage victims of antisemitic incidents to report them to the Community Security Trust (CST), a charity that works to protect British Jews from terrorism and antisemitism. The government also says victims of anti-Muslim hostility should report incidents to the British Muslim Trust.
In addition, the Bell review recommends that the DfE should update behaviour and preventing bullying guidance to include advice on identifying, preventing and responding to antisemitism as well as “other forms of hatred and prejudice”.
How would the new approach work?
The DfE has not yet finalised details about how the new requirement will work.
Wood says says the government would need to change reporting requirements on types of racist abuse for the suspensions and exclusions data. But schools may be able to introduce sub-categories for their own data, depending on their behaviour system.
However, Wood adds, changing the system will likely be easier than ensuring that school staff have the “understanding and training” needed to “appropriately respond and categorise these incidents”.
What are some of the concerns around the proposed approach?
The sequence of change will be important for schools, says Margaret Mulholland, SEND and inclusion specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders.
Many schools use external recording platforms, so they will need time for these to be updated or to find alternative methods.
“It would also be sensible for the updated advice for schools on identifying, preventing and responding to antisemitism and other forms of hatred and prejudice to be published in advance of any changes to the way incidents are recorded,” Mulholland adds.
NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede also welcomes effective reporting systems for recording racist incidents, but says these systems should capture all forms of racism and discrimination experienced by pupils and staff.
“We would be concerned if a more robust reporting framework were introduced for antisemitism without equivalent mechanisms for other forms of racist abuse,” he says. “We also believe that if schools are being asked to collect such information, consideration should be given to how that data is monitored nationally so that trends can be identified and addressed.”
Separately, the Good Law Project has also launched a legal challenge against the government accepting the Bell review’s recommendation to encourage schools to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which some human rights organisations claim conflates criticism of the state of Israel with antisemitism.
How many incidents are currently recorded in schools?
The number of students suspended because of racist abuse increased year-on-year in the latest DfE figures, as the total number of students suspended and excluded decreased. As mentioned in the Bell report, though, suspension figures do not give us a picture of what kind of racist abuse it was - this usually comes from third parties.
Charities recording antisemitic and anti-Muslim incidents recorded an increase in incidents in schools in the wake of 7 October 2023. This was the date when Hamas-led militants invaded Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking more than 250 others hostage. Since then, Israeli forces have killed more than 75,000 people in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
During 2025, CST recorded 204 antisemitic incidents targeting schools, out of 3,700 antisemitic incidents in total (a figure that has been rising over the past 10 years).
The British Muslim Trust was appointed last year by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to monitor anti-Muslim incidents and hate crimes, but it has not yet reported figures on incidents of anti-Muslim hostility related to schools.
How does this compare with the national picture?
The increase in incidents in schools seems to be reflecting a wider increase in racist and religious hate crimes.
across England and Wales have been increasing, with a 7 per cent rise in the year ending March 2026, according to figures published by the Home Office.
This included a 13 per cent year-on-year increase in religious hate crimes, and a 9 per cent increase in race hate crimes, while there were small small year-on-year decreases in hate crimes related to sexual orientation and disability.
Almost three-quarters of religious hate crimes were targeted at either Jewish people or Muslim people. Both of these types of hate crime increased in the past year - by 15 per cent for hate crimes against Muslim people and 10 per cent for hate crimes against Jewish people.
Hate crimes against Jewish people made up 28 per cent of religious hate crimes in 2025-26 - at a rate of 117 per 10,000 in the population. Meanwhile, hate crimes against Muslim people made up 46 per cent of all religious hate crimes, with a rate of 13 per 10,000 in the population.
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