Ofsted inspectors will meet with parents of children with special education needs who are not in school to assess how they are being supported. Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) will carry out a series of “thematic visits” to understand why children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) are not in class.
It comes as the Government’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is seeking to remove the automatic right for parents to home educate their children, if the young person is at risk of serious harm. The proposed legislation includes registers in every local authority in England to identify children not in school, as well as giving councils power to intervene and require school attendance if the home environment is unsuitable.
The visits, which will take place between spring and summer this year, will look at the experiences of children with Send who are not registered at a school. They will also consider the experiences of Send children who are on a school roll but are “flexi-schooled”, on a part-time timetable, or severely absent.
Last month, Ofsted’s chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver warned of a rise of flexi-schooling – where parents home-educate their children for part of the week. Guidance on the thematic reviews of children not in school, released by Ofsted and the CQC on Tuesday, said inspectors will meet “remotely” with parents who have agreed to participate.
