Incomplete records and patchy data mean there could be up to 300,000 children missing out on education in England, according to a thinktank that wants a national register to track those out of school.
The Education Policy Institute (EPI) said the 300,000 could not be accounted for, after taking the number of children registered with NHS GPs in England and subtracting the number of five- to 15-year-olds on school rolls or recorded as in home education.
The EPI also found that the potential gap between GP registrations and school enrolments had widened by 40% between 2017 and 2023, suggesting that the Covid pandemic contributed to a spike in prolonged school absences.
The EPI acknowledged that the 300,000 figure had “limitations” because of the available data, and did not include children whose families had moved abroad or to other parts of the UK including Wales or Scotland. It also did not account for potential double registrations, when children are listed with two or more GP surgeries.
Whitney Crenna-Jennings, the EPI’s associate director and an author of the report, said the government needed to address the “data gaps” causing uncertainty over the numbers affected.
“Many thousands of children are missing or go missing from education in England – this is a critical issue that demands our attention. While some may be receiving a suitable education outside of formal settings or in different countries, this research shows that the children who go missing are often amongst the most vulnerable in our society,” Crenna-Jennings said.
“Our findings reveal the potential scale of the issue as well as the urgent need for comprehensive data on children and targeted interventions to ensure that every child receives their legal entitlement to education.”
The analysis estimates that the rate of permanent absences increase by age, with about 50,000 children joining and then leaving school rolls by Year 11. The highest proportions of those missing were from traveller, Gypsy or Roma communities, with up to 75% of those from Traveller communities exiting the system.
The EPI said that the government’s plans to create a register of children not in school did not go far enough, and advised that “a more complete register” using data from education, health and other administrative sources, should be maintained by the Office for National Statistics.
The report also called for schools to record the reasons given for each child being removed from their rolls, and for that data to be centrally collected.
Department for Education figures estimated that 117,100 children were missing out on education during 2022-23, compared with 94,900 in 2021-22. But the DfE total only includes children not on school rolls or home-educated based on local authority figures, leaving an unknown number unaccounted for.
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said the government needed to make good its promise to include a register of all children out of school in the forthcoming children’s wellbeing bill.
“What is needed is significant new investment in services like local attendance support teams, children’s social care, mental health services and special needs provision, and real action to tackle the poverty which fuels issues in families’ lives and makes it harder for young people to attend and flourish at school,” Whiteman said.
