4.8 Children Missing Education |
For detailed guidance on Children Missing Education, see Statutory Guidance for Local Authorities in England to identify children not receiving education, published by the DfES in February 2007.
Please also refer to the Children Missing Education Strategy and Missing Pupil Guidance for Oxfordshire which can be found at:
OCC Intranet/directorates and services/Children Young People and Families/child protection
Contents
1. Definition
'Children Missing Education' refers to all children of compulsory school age:
- who are not on a school roll or being educated otherwise (e.g. privately or in alternative provision) for example children of travelling communities or immigrant families who never are registered for education; or
- who have been out of any educational provision for a substantial period of time (usually agreed as twenty days without provision of reasonable explanation). However if the child is the subject of a Child Protection Plan or identified as being from a vulnerable group, concerns should be raised at a much earlier stage.
In Oxfordshire the Children Missing Education Officer is the Service Manager, Tracking and Monitoring and as such is responsible for receiving details of children missing from education and for brokering support for them through the most appropriate agencies.
2. Responsibilities
Identifying children not receiving education is a key part of discharging your responsibility to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. The Oxfordshire Children Missing Education (CME) Strategy is underpinned by crosscutting safeguarding and multi-agency collaboration. The tracking and monitoring process is about ensuring that all Oxfordshire children and young people access their full entitlement to education. The strategy will be implemented through early identification systems through named points of contact for referrals, notification routes for CME, register audits, truancy sweeps and the brokering of provisions to re-engage disaffected pupils.
2.1 Required Action by Schools
Schools have a daily overview of pupil registration and attendance data. They are required to establish, promote and support systems that identify and locate children Missing education through liaison with other services and agencies most likely to find such children. This will require the sharing of appropriate information with other agencies to identify pupils at risk of missing education and to track Children Missing Education.
Schools are required to continue to develop procedures that identify Children Missing Education by liaising with other local authorities via the national S2S database.
Head Teachers are required to notify the Service Manager Tracking and Monitoring of such Missing children when appropriate investigations have been carried out within a timeframe. The Education Social Worker (ESW) will already be involved, but if not, then s/he should be notified.
If the child is the subject of a Child Protection Plan, then the Head Teacher should also inform the Keyworker. Once confirmed by the ESW that the child is officially Missing, schools should create a Common Transfer File (CTF) and post it electronically on the missing pupil database (S2S).
Schools are required to comply with Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCFS) Registration Regulations 2006 and the County’s Children Missing Education policy when removing a pupil from school roll.
Schools should maintain procedures to re-engage those Missing, with appropriate educational provision through a lead agency, key worker and action planning process.
2.2 By Partner Agencies
The local authority encourages all partner agencies to refer concerns they may have about the provision (or lack of it) being offered to or accessed by any statutory school age children or young people. The agency should complete the referral form for the Service Manager Tracking and Monitoring (available as an appendix to the CME Strategy document on the intranet site as above).
Agencies should work in partnership with schools to re-engage those Missing, with appropriate educational provision through a lead agency, key worker and action planning process.
Agencies should engage in appropriate information sharing with schools and other agencies to identify pupils at risk of Missing education and to track Children Missing Education.
The appropriate agency will be informed of an issue and will be expected to take a lead role in investigating and resolving the problem. Where the issue remains unresolved, then agencies should engage in a Team Around the Child (TAC) approach unless LAC multi-agency Panel or YOS/Education Panel are already engaged.
2.3 By the Service Manager, Tracking and Monitoring
The Service Manager Tracking and Monitoring is required to maintain and develop a Local Authority Pupil of Concern Database of all Children Missing Education reported in Oxfordshire.
The Service Manager Tracking and Monitoring is required to assess referrals and in partnership with service managers or lead co-ordinators, identify a Lead Professional to resolve the access/ provision issue. The Service Manager Tracking and Monitoring is required to ensure this happens in an appropriate timeframe and to monitor and update progress on the Children Missing Education (CME) database.
The Service Manager Tracking and Monitoring is required to prepare, analyse and present reports on CME data to the Directorate Leadership Team monthly.
Through publicity, the Service Manager Tracking and Monitoring is required to raise awareness of the general public to Children Missing Education and every child’s right to education.
3. Records and Notifications of Children Missing from Education
Although the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) Registration Regulations (2006) state that a child may be deleted from the school roll after 20 school days of continuous absence without good reason, there is a clear responsibility to ensure that the correct procedures of investigating this absence have been followed as Children Missing Education may raise potential child protection issues. This has also been recently highlighted in case law, where it was determined that separate investigations should take place by the school and the local authority before a pupil is removed from a roll.
Schools are required to comply with DCSF Regulations and the County’s Children Missing Education policy when removing a pupil from a school roll. This must not take place until the Education Social Worker has completed enquiries and advised the school to do so.
If this has been done, then the child’s name should be kept on a centrally held register and should be clearly identified as a Child Missing Education.
The Head Teacher should keep the pupil’s file until s/he has been located, whether or not the child is on the school roll.
Where the Head Teacher has been notified by a parent/carer that the pupil is being educated other than at school and has removed the child’s name from school roll, the Head Teacher is required to inform the local authority by writing to the Service Manager Tracking and Monitoring within 10 days.
The child’s file should be transferred to the Service Manager Tracking and Monitoring.
If a school receives a new pupil without receiving information from the child’s previous school, then the school should inform the Service Manager Tracking and Monitoring who will investigate.
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