Nearly 50,000 children missing from classroom registers amid claims schools are ‘off-loading’ pupils with poor results Nearly 50,000 children are disappearing from classroom registers without any explanation, a study has found following allegations hundreds of schools […]

Nearly 50,000 children are disappearing from classroom registers without any explanation, a study has found following allegations hundreds of schools are gaming the system to boost their position in league tables.

One in 12 pupils (8.1 percent) from the cohort that finished year 11 in 2017 were removed from school rolls for reasons not accounted for by family decisions, according to the study by the Education Policy Institute.

Their report, sponsored by the National Education Union, says the missing names account for 55,300 school exits by 49,100 pupils. The figure has grown from previous years.

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It comes after the schools regulator Ofsted last year identified 300 schools with high levels of soc-called “off-rolling” where pupils disappear from a school register just before GCSEs. Ofsted found that more than 19,000 year 10 pupils vanished from school in 2016.

Off-rolling has become an issue of growing concern for Ofsted amid allegations that some schools are playing the system by getting rid of poorly performing students to boost their performance in leage tables.

The institute has now found a small number of schools have particularly high rates of pupil exits, with just six percent of secondary schools in England (330 schools) accounting for almost a quarter (23 percent) of the total number of unexplained moves in 2017.

Jo Hutchinson, report author and director of social mobility and vulnerable learners at the EPI, said: “This research provides important evidence on unexplained pupil exits in the school system, following reports of children being removed by schools for reasons that are not in the pupil’s best interests.

”For the first time, we begin to see the full scale of this problem, having stripped away cases where family decisions have led to school moves.

“Our estimate is that one in 12 children are being pushed around the system, and that this has risen in recent years.

”We will undertake further research on these trends this year, highlighting prevalence among local areas and groups of schools.“

The EPI says the schools with very high exit rates have removed the equivalent of an entire classroom of children from a single year group, as they have moved through secondary school, from 2012 to 2017.

According to the research, pupils with certain characteristics are disproportionately represented among those leaving school rolls.

One in three pupils in the social care system, one in seven disadvantaged pupils, and one in eight black pupils experience unexplained school moves, the report says.

The report also found the proportion of pupils who left school rolls with no explanation was the highest in the most recent cohort in our study – those expected to have finished year 11 in 2017.

For the 2014 cohort, 7.2 percent moved between schools or left the school system completely, and this was not explained by family reasons for moving.

In the 2011 year group, over the course of five years, 7.8 percent of pupils had moves that were unexplained by family reasons.

Education campaigners have long expressed concern at the notion of off-rolling – where problematic, badly behaved or academically poor pupils are unofficially removed from the school.

‘The size of unexplained pupil moves is disturbing’

This can include a ”managed move“, when a school looks for an alternative to expelling a pupil, such as asking another institution to admit the youngster to give them a new start.

Other examples, identified by local authorities, include suggesting the pupil is educated at home for an unspecified period, prompting concerns children could fall through the gaps and out of the education system.

Unlike formal exclusions, there is no requirement to record the reason why a pupil has been removed from a school roll.

David Laws, executive chairman of the EPI, said: ”The size of unexplained pupil moves is disturbing and will raise concerns about whether some schools are ‘off-rolling’ pupils.

“We need to look particularly closely at the six percent of schools which account for almost a quarter of unexplained moves.

”In a few months’ time we will publish figures showing the scale of this issue by school group, to allow for greater scrutiny over what is happening in our schools.“