Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of pupils have been off-rolled from schools in England the last academic year.

The information requested is not held by the Department and cannot be estimated from current data sources.

The Government is clear that off rolling is unacceptable in any form. The Department will continue to work with Ofsted to define and tackle it. Ofsted already considers records of pupils taken off roll and revisions to the framework in September 2019 strengthened the focus on this. Where inspectors find off rolling, this will always be addressed in the inspection report and, where appropriate, could lead to a school’s leadership being judged inadequate.

A pupil’s name can lawfully be deleted from the admission register only on the grounds prescribed in Regulation 8 of the Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006 as amended. All schools must notify the local authority when a pupil’s name is to be deleted from the admission register under any of the grounds prescribed in regulation 8. This should be done as soon as the ground for removal is met and no later than the time at which the pupil’s name is removed from the register.