Children Missing From Education
Last updated: November 28, 2008
Table of Contents
1. Introduction and definition
“Children and young people who are missing from education are more likely to be vulnerable in one way or another and may be from disadvantaged families”.
Statutory guidance for local authorities in England to identify children not receiving education February 2007
This procedure relates to children who are missing from education and those at risk of going missing from education. A child missing from education is defined as being of compulsory school age who is not on a school roll, nor being educated otherwise (e.g. at home, in independent schools or in alternative provision) or who has been out of any educational provision for four weeks or more.
There is a requirement placed on local authorities to have in place robust systems that quickly identify when a child is missing from education and the action that should be taken to provide them with suitable education.
There are numerous groups of number children and young people who are recognised as at risk of going missing from education; these are
- young people who have committed offences
- children/young people at risk of offending
- children/young people living in women’s refuges
- children/young people of homeless and refugee families
- children/young people for whom English is an additional language
- young runaways
- young people forced into marriage
- children/young people engaged in prostitution
- children/young people with long-term medical or emotional problems
- children/young people with a statement of Special Educational Needs [SEN]
- children/young people in local authority care ? looked after
- children/young people with a gypsy/traveller background
- young carers
- teenage mothers
- children/young people who are permanently excluded from school
- children/young people with poor attendance
- children/young people on roll of alternative education providers
- children/young people with emotional behavioural difficulties (EBD)
- Children in need of educational and aspirational guidance and support
- Children identified with specific child protection issues and those who are subject of a child protection plan
Each local authority area will have specific systems in place for each of these groups of children and young people that will minimise the opportunity for them to miss education.
To reduce the risk that children fall out of the education system and go missing local authorities should have in place measures that:
- reduce the likelihood that children fall out of the education system, such as audits of the rolls and registers of schools;
- identify and locate children who are not receiving education, such as via truancy sweeps and the provision of named points of contact to receive notification of children from other agencies; and
- re-engage the children with appropriate educational provision, for example via multi-agency panels to broker admissions.
