Local authorities can pay annual fees of £30,000 or even more to private and sometimes unregistered providers.Īccording to Ofsted, the number of pupils taken out of their primary school and referred to alternative educational settings has risen 27% in the last four years, and there are more than 7,000 pupils aged 11 and under being taught in AP. Ofsted inspectors have reported visiting schools in caravans and on industrial estates. Some “exist on the edge of the law”, she said. She has called on the government to make it a legal requirement for all AP to be registered, warning that inspectors have found pupils in unregistered settings playing video games all day in unkempt and unsafe buildings where staff do not appear to care whether they attend or not. The chief inspector of schools in England, Amanda Spielman, told the Guardian that some children were being removed from mainstream schools because their needs and behaviour were seen as “too challenging”, and were being placed in alternative provision (AP) “with little thought of their futures”.

The schools inspectorate Ofsted has launched an urgent inquiry into a sharp rise in the number of primary-age children – some as young as five – being excluded from school and placed in institutions that can be unregulated, “unkempt and unsafe”.

Rise of ages