In the news: Off-rolling and school attendance

Education Guidance and Legislation 31st January 2019 Return to News

Since Ofsted published a blog regarding their concerns about ‘off-rolling’ a number of other publications have taken up the story and recent reports indicate that the Head from Educating Greater Manchester is also caught up in the controversy.

What is off-rolling and why are schools gaming the reporting system?

Ofsted’s definition of ‘off-rolling’ is:

The practice of removing a pupil from the school roll without a formal, permanent exclusion or by encouraging a parent to remove their child from the school roll, when the removal is primarily in the interests of the school rather than in the best interests of the pupil. Off-rolling in these circumstances is a form of ‘gaming’. There are many reasons why a school might remove a pupil from the school roll, such as when a pupil moves house or a parent decides (without coercion from the school) to home educate their child. This is not off-rolling. If a school removes a pupil from the roll due to a formal permanent exclusion and follows the proper processes, this is not off-rolling.

Ofsted found that between 2016 and 2017:

over 19,000 pupils did not progress from Year 10 to Year 11 in the same state-funded secondary school
many of these 19,000 plus pupils moved to another state-funded school, but around half did not reappear at a different state-funded school
it was likely to affect some children more than others, such as those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities, children eligible for free school meals, children looked after, and some minority ethnic groups who are all more likely to leave their school.

Jason Bradbury, Deputy Director for Data and Insight and the Chief Statistician for Ofsted, commented in the blog:

Academies, particularly those in some multi-academy trusts, appear to be losing proportionately more pupils than local authority schools. Conversely, local authority schools seem to be taking on proportionately more pupils. Are these differences partly due to the context of the schools, and the types of pupils they cater for? Or is it also the policies of particular schools?

New Ofsted inspection framework

The whole education sector is eagerly awaiting details of Ofsted's planned revised inspection framework in the hope that it will remove the pressure from schools which is causing such manipulation of reports. In recent interviews with the press, Amanda Spielman, Ofsted's Chief Inspector, spoke about off-rolling and added:

“In developing the new inspection framework that comes into play in 2019, Ofsted wants to give inspectors “insight and understanding” into conversations they can start to work out whether the “pressures that unquestionably act on schools” are encouraging them to manage pupils’ behaviour in the wrong ways.

School Attendance training course

EduCare's new training course on School Attendance and Children Missing Education has been written in partnership with Education Law experts. The purpose of the course is to help learners understand the current law and guidance relating to school attendance and children missing education. It covers the main guidance documents, statutory duties for local authorities and schools, children not on roll and other key areas.

The course is available to buy online or can be combined with two courses on School Exclusions and bought as an Education Law for Management addition to EduCare for Education^®.