A teaching union leader has questioned whether Ofsted is reluctant to call out off-rolling in schools run by multi-academy trusts that are close to the government because it is too “politically uncomfortable”.

Mary Bousted, the NEU teaching union’s joint general secretary, is concerned about why Ofsted is identifying the seemingly identical cases involving the removal of students in Year 11 as off-rolling in some schools, but not in others.

However, Ofsted is rejecting any suggestion that it treats schools differently because of the links they might have.

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Ofsted has vowed to crack down on off-rolling, which it says is a form of gaming the system.

However, there have now been several inspection reports in which Ofsted’s own definition appears to have been met but in which the watchdog does not describe the removal of students in these schools as off-rolling.

Dr Bousted said: “It is unclear why Ofsted has found the removal of pupils from rolls in this way to be off-rolling in some reports but not others.

“Are confident schools and trusts able to push back against Ofsted when asked why pupils are taken off their roll?”

The controversy is highlighted by the inspection report into East Point Academy, run by Inspiration Trust, a chain set up by schools minister Lord Agnew.

A report into the secondary in Lowestoft, Suffolk, found some students who had been placed in alternative provision were taken off the roll in Year 11, but inspectors did not define this as off-rolling.

The decision appears to run counter to Ofsted’s own definition of off-rolling as the removal of students from a school roll, without formal exclusion, when this is being done in the interests of the school and not the student.

In the case of East Point, Ofsted said leaders could not show why removing students from the school roll in Year 11 was in their best interests. However, inspectors did not say these students were off-rolled and the school remained judged as “good”.

This was in marked contrast to another report from a school in the same town. Ormiston Denes Academy, also in Lowestoft, was found to be off-rolling and downgraded to “inadequate”.

In both inspection reports, Ofsted says the  schools were following a locally approved practice in removing students, who were attending alternative provision, from their roll in Year 11. But one  report describes this as off-rolling and the other does not.

A report into Holte School in Birmingham, which was published the same week as East Point’s, also found students who were attending alternative provision were being removed from the school roll in Year 11. 

In this case, Ofsted said it was off-rolling and the school was downgraded from “outstanding” to “requires improvement”.

Dr Bousted said: “Is it because some trusts and trustees are too close to the [Department for Education]? Surely Ofsted would not want the accusation that it is unwilling to find off-rolling or to downgrade schools because it would be too politically uncomfortable?

“This is an important issue for schools who need to know how Ofsted are making their decisions and the new reports are very unclear about how Ofsted are making their judgements.

“Is Ofsted still working to the same definition of what it considers to be off-rolling?”

 An Ofsted spokesperson said: “Our school inspection handbook says that where off-rolling is a form of gaming, it is wrong. When inspectors find that school leaders have removed a pupil in the interests of the school, and not the child, they will call that out in their reports.

“Off-rolling is not a key judgement and inspectors do not have a single, set way of describing it. Instead they will describe the individual circumstances they found in a school - as is the case with our reports about these two schools.

“Our inspection reports are underpinned by clear evidence. It is wrong to suggest that inspectors take into account the school type, or any links a school may have, when they write their reports.”

At the time of the East Point report, Inspiration Trust said the Ofsted report  “explicitly makes clear that there is no evidence of any off-rolling”.

However, Tes has revealed today that inspectors’ notes do suggest that off-rolling has taken place at the school recently.

In these notes, obtained under a freedom of information request, one of the bullet points says the school is “no longer off-rolling to AP [alternative provision] but this is new”.