Ofsted boss Sir Martyn Oliver has revealed he’s worried by the rise of flexi-schooling – saying the watchdog isn’t able to get a “proper handle” on the practice.
It comes as the inspectorate’s annual report today warns of a rise in “unorthodox patterns of education”.
This includes a “small number” of schools allowing children to be flexi-schooled – where parents choose to home educate their children for part of the week.
Oliver, the chief inspector, said he is “very concerned” that schools can record this as an authorised absence, which means Ofsted can’t be sure how prevalent flexi-schooling is.
He said he wasn’t aware of this before taking the helm at the inspectorate, and has raised his concerns with the Department for Education and thinks “greater safeguarding” is needed.
“I am worried about flexi schooling,” he told an online brief briefing this morning.
“I’m sure it can be done well in some areas of the country, but we don’t have a proper handle on it at Ofsted, because we’re not able to track how many children are having some time home educated and sometime in their school and educated. So that worries us.
“We’re worried about the children who use education online services and part time in schools.
“We’re worried about the children who are registered in schools and go missing from education,” he added.
He also voiced alarm after an Education Policy Institute report compared GP registrations with school records, covering pupils aged five to 15, and found about 400,000 children it might expect to see in schools are not attending.
“I am very concerned that that’s an awful lot of young people in this country who are not getting the regular oversight by care professionals or education professionals, and I worry about the future for those children and for society,” Oliver added.
Will Ofsted lobby for coding change?
Oliver said some home schooling in England is “wonderful” and parents have a right to do it.
But on flexi-schooling and how its recorded by schools, he said “there needs to be greater safeguarding around it and it needs to be properly held accountable.
“The school and the parent to make sure that child is getting a great package for education all together.”
On whether he’ll lobby for a change in the absence codes so that schools have a separate code where they can record flexi- schooling, Oliver said he hasn’t raised this with the DfE yet.
He added: “We’ve been so busy on other areas, but it is something I will be wanting to discuss with ministers about the rules and the controls around flexi-schooling…”
‘Hard to say’ if too many youngsters are on EHCPs
A growing number of children are on part-time timetables and a mix of online and in-person education is increasingly being used for kids with SEND and behaviour or health needs, Ofsted noted today.
The watchdog said the report shows there are “many reasons to be positive” about future of education and children’s social care, but that huge challenges remain.
Ofsted’s report said it was “right to consider demand as well as supply; not all children with an identified need will (or should) receive an EHC plan”, and that needs of many children with SEND “can and should be met in mainstream schools with high-quality targeted support”.
Oliver said there’s been a 140 per cent rise in requests for EHCPs and “there is no silver bullet because there’s simply not enough silver to go around”.
He stressed that the incoming report card system, due to be rolled out for schools from September, will have a focus on inclusion and “the really crucial part is, is that mainstream schools should be able to support children with the services around them, unless their educational health care needed is so great that they require specialist provision”.
He added: “What we see is that too often, children haven’t been identified, haven’t been worked with at an early enough stage, right from early years, right at the beginning of primary school, and these issues and the gaps in their learning are allowed to manifest and become become a problem as they move through education. So I think it’s about ethics…”
Oliver said “it’s hard to say” if Ofsted thinks too many kids have EHCPs.
“I can’t sit in the centre of Westminster and say that a child should or shouldn’t be getting it that goes down to the quality of the expertise in the school or in the setting.”
Oliver issues SENCO warning
But he said he can try and make sure, going forward, that every school has a special educational needs coordinator [SENCO].
The DfE’s SEND code of practice states all schools should have a qualified teacher appointed SENCO.
Oliver added: “I think it’s really important that Ofsted is checking that schools are meeting that need, and that these experts are in schools are identifying needs, and they’re the ones who are best place to then decide [the level of support a child needs].”
Asked if schools are struggling to attract and keep SENCOs and if he is aware of schools operating without them, Oliver said it’s not something they have tracked in that much detail.
‘Nothing’s off the table’ with report card rollout timetable
Meanwhile, the sector is concerned about both the pace Ofsted is moving with developing new report cards and the current proposals.
Asked if he would consider delaying rollout of cards, due in September, if January’s consultation on the plans identified concerns, Oliver said it will be a “genuine consultation” and that “nothing’s off the table”.
On attendance, Oliver said the last government “did a tremendous amount” to improve the issue.
“This is not a problem unique to the United Kingdom or to England. It’s a worldwide problem, and comparatively, we’re not doing badly,” he added.
But he said it is “still not good enough for the children who are missing” and he’s “worried about children who are persistently absent, missing 10 per cent of their time”.
