Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to reduce off-rolling in schools.

The government is clear that off-rolling (the practice of removing a pupil from the school roll without using a permanent exclusion, when the removal is primarily in the best interests of the school, rather than the best interests of the pupil) is unacceptable in any form and the department continues to work with Ofsted to tackle it.

Ofsted already considers records of children taken off-roll and their characteristics and have strengthened the focus on this in the revised inspection framework since September 2019. 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 as inadequate.

A pupil’s name can lawfully be deleted from the admission register 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 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. This requirement is intended to act as a safeguard to ensure children do not go missing from education.