AP brings particular challenges, so governors should look differently at risk, accountability, attendance and results, says Nicola Hall
Alternative provision is often described as complex, high-risk and under intense scrutiny.
All of that is true. What is less well understood is that governing in AP requires a different kind of boardroom discipline, one that cannot simply be imported from mainstream schooling and expected to work.
As chair of governors of an alternative provision school in Blackpool, I see first-hand how governance sits at the intersection of safeguarding, accountability and reduced life chances.
The stakes are high. Many of the young people we serve are already on a trajectory of exclusion from education, employment or training. That reality must shape how boards think, ask questions and hold leaders to account.
Risk in AP is not a red flag – it is the context
AP boards must understand that risk is not something to be eliminated, but something to be actively governed.
Pupils often arrive with disrupted education, unmet SEND, trauma, mental ill health and involvement with multiple services. These risks do not disappear when a child enters provision, they concentrate.
Effective governance means distinguishing between managed risk and unacceptable risk.
It requires close scrutiny of safeguarding systems, behaviour frameworks and staff training, while recognising that incident-free perfection is neither realistic nor honest. Boards that seek to sanitise risk often drive the wrong behaviours underground.
Accountability must be sharper, not louder
AP governance demands clarity of accountability, not performative oversight. Boards need to understand precisely where statutory responsibility sits, particularly where pupils are placed by multiple commissioning bodies.
Blurred accountability between schools, local authorities and trusts can leave governors either over-reaching or under-challenging.
Strong boards ask uncomfortable questions: Who owns the outcomes for this child? Who tracks their next destination? What happens when they leave us?
Accountability in AP does not end at the school gate or the end of a placement.
Comparison is the real danger
Inspection pressure in AP is intense, and boards must be fluent in what inspectors are looking for. But the most dangerous mistake is allowing governance to be driven by inappropriate comparison with mainstream schools.
Attendance offers a clear example. When attendance data was first presented alongside a mainstream comparator, the numbers appeared stark.
The board paused and reframed the question: how long did it take each pupil to attend at all? For several young people, moving from zero attendance to partial, sustained engagement represented significant progress. That would have been invisible through conventional benchmarks.
The board question that followed was simple but transformative: “What progress would we recognise here if this child had not been able to attend school at all before they arrived?”
That shift, from compliance to re-engagement, changed the nature of scrutiny without lowering ambition.
The same principle applies to academic progress. Boards may accept uneven progress where pupils arrive with significant learning gaps and unmet emotional needs, provided leaders can evidence a coherent strategy for re-engagement, curriculum sequencing and long-term progression.
In AP, progress is not always linear, but it must always be planned and intentional.
The ‘so what’ of AP
Ultimately, AP governance must be anchored in a clear answer to one question: so what? What difference does this provision make to a young person’s future?
Our raison d’être cannot be containment or compliance. It must be preparation for confident, sustained transition – whether that is reintegration, further education, training or onward pathways such as an apprenticeship.
For many young people in AP, this is their final opportunity to reconnect with learning and believe that education has a purpose.
Accepting alternative measures of progress is not low ambition. It is how boards govern bespoke, ambitious pathways towards sustained success beyond school and, critically, prevent young people from being not in education, employment or training (NEET).
Alternative provision is not a footnote in the system. For the young people who need it, it is the system.
That demands governing boards who understand risk, resist false comparison and never lose sight of the outcome that matters most: a future with real options.
