A response to the report Children Missing Education: The Unrolled Story
“Every child has a fundamental right to an education, yet more than 100,000 children each year are being denied this basic right.” is the opening line of the Children’s Commissioner’s report Children Missing Education: The Unrolled Story published in September 2024. She goes on to say, “I am committed to using my role as Children’s Commissioner to make sure every child’s right to education is protected.”
We hope it is not too pretentious to say we are also committed to this task. Not directly like the professionals on the front line, but by providing the tools they need to work more effectively.
We have two services which help professionals in different schools and the LA collaborate, a key theme in Dame Rachel’s report.
- SixIntoSeven is used to ensure that pupils enjoy a personalised transition by allowing pupil information from primary schools to be passed early to secondary schools for planning and interventions at the start of the year. This is a time when, as the Commissioner noted, many children go missing.
- Foresight is for those pupils with some of the greatest needs, such as those at risk of exclusions and with attendance concerns. It operates for the duration of a child’s time in school and involves the highest levels of local authority involvement and collaboration. The information follows the child as they move schools.
We’ve highlighted some of the key points from the report below and how Pupil Pathways addresses these challenges.
If you’d like to read a more in-depth overview of how SixIntoSeven and Foresight support the issues around children missing education (CME) raised in the Children’s Commissioner’s report, please download our full PDF here.
To find out more about how Pupil Pathways can help you address the issues raised in the report, please get in touch at pupilpathways.com/contact
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Quotes from the report |
How we support the aim |
| Children in the sample whose last-known destination was missing education were more likely than others to be age 10 at the start of the academic year, meaning they were transitioning to secondary school. (Page 18) | It has become clear that identifying pupils who could become a Child Missing Education requires a partnership between primary and secondary schools plus the local authority.
Local Authorities can run a report in SixIntoSeven in the summer term to see the children who are not allocated, as well as those currently known to be under appeal. Similarly, secondary schools can flag the pupils who did not arrive as expected and this information is centralised in an LA report.
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| Children with special educational needs (SEN) were disproportionately likely to become a child missing education. 22% of all children whose last known destination was missing education had some form of SEN, compared to 16% of the population in state-funded schools. (Page 22) | SixIntoSeven is used in different ways in our local authorities, but one thing they all have in common is an emphasis on the “Vulnerable Cohort”. Within our service, this comprises children who have SEN or SEMH and we have developed a standardised toolkit to transfer the detailed information from the primary school to the secondary school for early action and planning. |
| Some children became CME despite previously being in a school setting as they did not successfully transition between primary and secondary school. The office heard from local authorities that this might happen when a child did not receive their preferred place through school admissions or changed their mind about their school preference. (Page 24) | We create a watchlist of children in SixIntoSeven without a destination secondary school.
The primary schools can undertake a simple confirmation in July and alert the appropriate LA team that action is needed. Secondary schools can readily identify children who do not present in September and alert the LA. |
| In the desk-based analysis, the office identified only one local authority which detailed preventative work it was doing around CME related to managing successful transitions. (Page 34) | A new feature of SixIntoSeven for 2025 will be a curriculum to help children prepare for transition and to help those already in secondary schools prepare to welcome them. It is universally applicable, so there are no concerns if a pupil is going to a non-SixIntoSeven school. Using these lessons and the associated role-plays, staff will be able to see who might have a less than successful transition and take the necessary pro-active steps. |