Ofsted recommend that LA’s should establish a central record of all children not accessing full time education in the usual way, including those who are accessing alternative provision full time away from mainstream school, regardless of where they are on roll. They also recommend that all schools should inform the local authority of all pupils who have part time education arrangements or are accessing full time education away from mainstream school.

This would include:

• Pupils on the roll of a school who attend off site provision full time
• Pupils on the roll of a school on reduced timetables as part of behaviour plans
• Pupils on the roll of a school accessing part time alternative provision

Ofsted recommends that Schools, including Academies and Free Schools, should inform the LA of any part-time or alternative education arrangements regardless of school type.

In order to implement the recommendations, we are now asking schools to complete the notification form which can be found on BSO (Children not in receipt of full time education page).

It is vital that, as a Local Authority with a statutory responsibility for Children Missing from Education that we gather this information with a 100% return. It is our intention to gather this information every term.  We expect  to receive a complete list, from schools, of all students currently not in receipt of a full time school site based education by 30 September 2018.  The second return will be due by 31 January 2019. We would also request that schools who have no pupils who meet the criteria to submit a ‘nil return’.