Ofsted is to investigate why pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are leaving full-time education and what support they are being given to help them remain in school.
The reviews, starting in the spring, will also focus on children who are on a school roll but are flexi-schooled on a part-time timetable, receiving education otherwise than at school or who are severely absent, missing 50 per cent of lessons.
Inspectors will speak to students and families, teachers and school leaders about why children are not in school and how their needs are being met.
The thematic reviews, which will be carried out by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission, will also look at “how local authorities support children not in school, particularly hard-to-reach children and families, including where there are safeguarding concerns”.
Sara Sharif was murdered at the age of 10 by her father and stepmother, having been taken out of school only months before her death in 2023.
The judge in the court case, jailing her killers last month, said that parents can take their children out of school for periods of homeschooling “for good reasons and with the best of intentions” but that the case “starkly illustrates the danger” of a child being taken out of school.
Fears over children not in school
The government’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill includes a plan to ensure that local authorities maintain registers of children not in school.
In its annual report, published last month, Ofsted warned about a “vicious circle” of damage caused by pupils’ high absence and an increase in the number of children receiving an “unorthodox education” with time spent outside of the classroom.
The watchdog said it was “concerned” about the rise in part-time timetables - whereby a pupil attends school for less than full-time hours - which were previously accepted as a “short-term measure with a clear goal”. It cautioned that the “spread of part-time timetables suggests they are becoming more readily used, which cannot be good”.
As part of their thematic reviews, Ofsted and the CQC will look at the arrangements that local area partnerships have in place to oversee children with SEND who are not in school. They will also check what support there is to help these children transition back into formal education where appropriate.
Area SEND inspections have often highlighted the growing numbers of children not in school as a concern.
Ofsted said the review visits “will not result in judgements about individual local areas. Instead, an overarching report will be published in autumn 2025 and will highlight examples of good practice as well as identifying any systemic concerns”.
Margaret Mulholland, SEND and inclusion specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders, welcomed the focus on children with SEND who are either not registered with a school or are not receiving a full-time education.
“These children will often have highly complex needs and it’s important that time is taken to understand how they can best be supported,” she said.
“There is currently an overlap between high rates of absence from school and special educational needs. Only by closely examining the reasons for this, and making a significant investment to put in place the support these pupils require, is this going to change.”
Lee Owston, Ofsted’s national director for education, said its inspections had revealed that the number of children with SEND who are not in school has “been growing to a concerning extent”.
“It’s vital that the most vulnerable children are not out of sight and that they continue to receive the support they need, even when they are not at school. I hope these visits will help us to understand the experiences of these children, as well as the barriers local areas are facing in trying to deliver improvements for them,” he said.
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