Children Missing from Education
Children Missing from Education refers to all children of compulsory school age who are not on a school roll and have not being educated otherwise - privately or in alternative provision - for a substantial period of time (usually four weeks or more).
Children Missing from Education fall into two broad categories.
- Those whose whereabouts and circumstances are known to the council but who have, for whatever reason, been out of education for four school weeks or more.
- Those who are 'lost'. Children who have apparently disappeared and the council knows neither where they are nor anything of their circumstances or possibly even of their existence.
Both categories of children may be being denied the right to receive an education as well as being more vulnerable and exposed to a greater risk of harm. Neither position is acceptable.
From February 2007, under the new section 436A (inserted before section 437 in Chapter 2, Part 6 of the Education Act 1996 (school attendance) by the Education and Inspections Act 2006), what had previously been guidance on monitoring and tracking children missing from education became a statutory duty on local councils.
In addition to the responsibility on local councils to meet the requirements under the new section 436A, they also need to put in place arrangements for joint working and appropriate information sharing with other local authorities and relevant partner agencies which come into contact with families with children.
In addition to the responsibility on local councils to meet the requirements under the new section 436A, they also need to put in place arrangements for joint working and appropriate information sharing with other local authorities and relevant partner agencies which come into contact with families with children.
This should not be in isolation to what they are already doing to meet their duties under sections 10, 11 and 12 of the Children Act 2004. The new duty should strengthen and complement these existing duties; ie inter-agency co-operation to improve the wellbeing of children.
The attached Children Missing from Education policy document builds on existing good practice identifies and explains Derbyshire's implementation of this duty.
Related documents
The following document is in Portable Document Format (PDF). You can download the PDF software for free from the Adobe website (opens in a new window)