A paradox seems to exist where a child, of compulsory schooling age, is excluded from a school. The practice of exclusion has evolved over the almost two centuries of compulsory schooling. Abolition of corporal punishment in Western Australia and elsewhere has tended to focus attention on exclusion and the grounds justifying such action by school authorities. The current rise in the number of exclusions and the provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child are part of a shift in the understanding of the issues surrounding the exclusion of a child from compulsory schooling in Western Australia.