Requests to the senior leadership team (SLT) for information give no response or details, just that the parent has removed them.
In June 2019, Ofsted failed Falmouth School where it found pupils had been removed “against the wishes of the family, the advice of the local authority and the professional judgement of other agencies.” [6] The inspection of The Sutton Academy, St Helens, which is overseen by the St Helens College, showed 12 pupils who were receiving education, through an AP in the dual-roll mode, were transferred to the AP, removing them from Sutton's roll.
[6] Philip Nye, working for FFT Education Datalab, explains that in total, 24,600 pupils disappeared from mainstream schools last year, leaving for unknown destinations.
[1] Jason Bradbury, Ofsted's chief statistician, has identified certain trends, including that London is particularly badly affected.
[7] The National Association of Head Teachers warn that the resulting confusion will unreasonably drive up the rate of permanent exclusions.
[8] When pupils are off-rolled, the consequences for them are severe: only around one per cent of children who leave to an alternative provision or a special school achieve the benchmark five good GCSEs.
About 20,000 children leave the rolls of mainstream secondary schools to a range of other destinations: with only six per cent achieving five good GCSEs.