Children as young as five are being excluded from school and others have been punished for offences as severe as racism, drug abuse and sexual misconduct.

New statistics from the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) show that exclusions from primary schools nationally have reached a new high of 43,000 a year, and Brighton and Hove's primaries have the third highest suspension rate in the country.

Only schools in Portsmouth and Bristol excluded more pupils for misbehaviour in the year 2004/5, the most recent period for which statistics are available.

East Sussex also featured in the ten worst areas in the country for primary school "fixed-term" exclusions, also known as suspensions or temporary exclusions. Along with Brighton and Hove, it was shown to have temporarily excluded more children than any of the London boroughs.

In Brighton and Hove the exclusion rate was 3.15 per cent, based on the number of suspensions by comparison to the overall school population.

In East Sussex the rate was 2.32 per cent. Figures for West Sussex were unavailable.

Nationally more than 200 children were suspended from school every day. More than 1,000 were permanently excluded from their primaries during the year and there were 960 pupils suspended from the reception year of schools, which is for youngsters aged five and six.

The DfES confirmed that 330 children were excluded for racist abuse, 310 for sexual misconduct and 150 for alcohol and drug related offences.

There were almost ten times more boys temporarily excluded than girls, with figures of 42,140 and 4,220 respectively.

A DfES spokesman said the figures, released under the freedom of information act, showed there was a tough approach being taken to tackle bad behaviour.

He said parents played a key role in dealing with serious misbehaviour when children were at primary school age.

A Brighton and Hove City Council spokesman said the statistics were out of date and did not reflect the current position in the city's primaries.

He said: "Since launching our new behaviour strategy in September we have had no permanent exclusions at all at primary level and only a fraction of the number of fixed term exclusions.

"Factors children face outside school are often the root cause of poor behaviour and poor academic performance in school. Our education welfare team is dedicated to working with children and families and try and help resolve such issues."

He said the creation of a Children and Young People's Trust for the city, which combined education, health and social care services, had helped to address issues as a whole.

The spokesman said: "We've also had very good feedback from Ofsted recently about the performance of the city's Alternative Centre for Education, which provides specialist support and training in dealing with children with behavioural issues."

The worst areas for exclusions nationally, based on the number of suspensions as a percentage of the overall school population, were: 1 Portsmouth (5.24), 2 Bristol (3.16), 3 Brighton and Hove (3.15), 4 Southampton (2.75), 5 Walsall (2.62) 6 Hull (2.51), 7 Reading (2.4), 8 East Sussex (2.32), 9 Durham (2.17) and 10 Hackney, East London (2.01).