Ofsted to Assess SEND Provision for Pupils Not in School

As the number of children with SEND who are not in full-time education continues to rise, Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has released plans to visit local authority areas to assess the support in place for these children. Ofsted intends to carry out a series of “thematic visits” in various council areas over the next year to examine particular aspects of the SEND system as it relates to children accessing education outside of a school setting.

As highlighted in our recent blog post, there are currently at least 34,000 children on part-time timetables as schools are increasingly adopting the structure to address an ever-broadening range of issues and difficulties.

In response to this increase, and the Government’s recent proposal as part of its Children’s Wellbeing and School Bill to try and regulate elective home education.  Ofsted and CQC will be carrying out local authority visits between spring and summer this year. The visits will primarily focus on the experience of children of compulsory school age who are not registered at any independent or state-funded school, and an assessment of how they are being supported, as well as considering the experiences of children who are on a school roll but flexi-school (i.e., under a part-time timetable), receiving education otherwise than at school, or are severely absent.

Analysis by the Education Policy Institute last year found pupils with SEND or those from disadvantaged backgrounds are missing up to 4.4 more days than other youngsters.

Lee Owston, Ofsted’s National Director for Education, has confirmed that their inspections data supports the view that the number of children with SEND who are not in school has been “growing to a concerning rate.” 

“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.”

During their visits later this year, Ofsted and the CQC “will look at how local area partnerships are working to meet the needs of these children and the availability of universal and specialist health services”, said Ofsted.

“Inspectors will also consider the reasons why children are not in full-time education and what is being done to support them to attend school.”

Ofsted’s and CQC’s visits will be an exercise in gathering evidence from key stakeholders to understand their experiences; this will include gathering information from children, young people and their families.

Carried out as a separate exercise to the local area SEND inspections which result in individualised area reports, the findings from Ofsted’s and CQC’s visits will be published in an overarching report due in autumn 2025, which will aim to highlight examples of good practice and identify any “systemic concerns.”

Lucy Harte, deputy director of multiagency operations at the CQC, explained their involvement in the arrangement as an attempt to understand the impact on children and young people with SEND who are not being educated at school.

“Working with Ofsted, these visits will allow us to look at the relationships between local area partnerships including health care services in order to help understand how they can best meet the needs of children and young people with SEND.”

You can call our Education Law Solicitors on 0333 202 7175 or email education@hcbgroup.com