In 2023, as many as 305,000 children aged 5 to 15 were missing from education, a new analysis suggests.
The research (Crenna-Jennings et al, 2024) compares GP registrations with school enrolments and finds that up to 400,000 children and young people were not in school in 2023.
Of these, 95,000 were formally registered for home-education, leaving around 305,000 who were missing from education. This represents a 40% increase from 2017.
The number of children being formally home-educated has also risen by 100% since 2017.
The analysis warns that the number of students leaving the state system “rises significantly” through secondary school and peaks in year 10 before pupils sit their GCSEs. Around a fifth of all exits through the primary and secondary phases occur in year 10.
To reach the figure of 50,000, the authors used DfE data to follow four cohorts of pupils, from reception to year 11, who finished secondary school in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021, counting the cases where pupils left a school and did not reappear in a mainstream school, alternative provision or the independent sector by year 11.
The authors are recommending that schools be required to record the reasons why pupils are deregistered to help better understand the national picture.
The report states: “This would allow better oversight of illegal exclusions, including off-rolling; the role played by mental health issues or disengagement from education in system exits; along with a better understanding of the proportion of system exits related to out-migration from the country.”
The report, which has been published by the Education Policy Institute, also recommends that progress is made towards a mandatory register for children not in school.
Students most likely to have left the school system by year 11 include those who are vulnerable and already marginalised, including:
- Around 75% of Traveller pupils and 50% of Gypsy/Roma pupils.
- Almost a fifth of persistently disadvantaged pupils (those eligible for free school meals for at least 80% of relevant terms) and permanently excluded pupils.
- Around 1 in 8 care-experienced pupils.
Co-author of the analysis, Whitney Crenna-Jennings, associate director for mental health, wellbeing and inclusion at the Education Policy Institute, said: "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 among the most vulnerable in our society, potentially at risk of harm and poor outcomes.
“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.”
It comes as a separate report this week from the Centre for Young Lives (2024) warns that poverty and hardship are preventing some children from attending school, with “big increases” in persistent and severe absence among children receiving free school meals.
The study shows that absence rates for the poorest children have grown the fastest, with the analysis suggesting that rates of persistent absence (pupils missing 10% or more of sessions) for FSM-eligible children have risen by more than double the percentage points of their peers since Covid.
Drivers of absence for this cohort include families not being able to afford uniform, including PE kits, school food or transport to school.
The report states: “We heard of siblings sharing shoes and so taking it in turns to attend school. We heard about some children being bullied for being ‘dirty and smelly’ because their family didn’t have the means to regularly wash uniform. This discouraged them from attending school. We heard about a young person who hadn’t been coming into school two days a week because they were receiving detentions for not having the correct PE kit.”
The analysis also suggests that school absences are occurring earlier and earlier, at primary school age, and “poor school readiness is becoming an indicator of absence downstream in school life”.
The Centre for Young Lives is using the report to support its calls for the government to scrap two-child limit for Universal Credit and expand FSMs to all children with families receiving Universal Credit.
It also wants to see more action to reduce the cost of uniform, including reducing the number of logos allowed to one and it wants attendance guidance to be updated to “make it explicitly clear that poverty should be identified, considered and acted on in relation to school absence”
Anne Longfield, executive chair of the Centre for Young Lives, said: “DfE data shows persistent absence and severe absence are both much higher among pupils eligible for FSMs.
“I am very encouraged that school absence is now seen by the DfE as one of the big structural problems it faces – and that reducing school absence is recognised as an important factor in the government’s mission to reduce child poverty.
“The recommendations in this report have the potential to improve school attendance among children in poverty. That includes putting more money in the pockets of families and bringing down the cost of school. We also want to see stronger support for families, strategies from schools that recognise poverty, and better use of the DfE’s world-leading attendance data.”
- Centre for Young Lives: Too Skint for School: Breaking the link between poverty and attendance, 2024. Click here.
- Crenna-Jennings, Joseph & Hutchinson: Children missing from education: Estimates, trends and characteristics, EPI, 2024: https://epi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/CME-report_final-1.pdf