This article begins by examining the Scottish Executive's published figures on exclusion from school to argue that while they show small reductions in the use of temporary exclusions from year to year, there is as yet no evidence of a substantial reduction. In addition it argues that the published data fail to give an accurate picture of the continuing wider exclusion problem of young people who find themselves outside of school for other reasons including illness and truancy. The article addresses the causes of exclusion by presenting recent research with young people who had been excluded from mainstream schools in Edinburgh and who were contacted within a variety of alternative settings outside the school gates. This research was carried out in these alternative institutional environments so that young people could talk freely about difficult experiences at school. The research shows that although the individual respondents' experiences of the exclusion process were often very different from one another, their accounts when put together actually present a coherent perspective on the way that inclusive policies are still failing to work in mainstream schools, particularly with regard to relationships. The concluding discussion examines why this is so and points to the changes needed for schools to cultivate better and more supportive relationships with their more vulnerable pupils. (Contains 5 tables.)