More than 11,500 children in England went missing from education within a year, the children’s commissioner has found.
Dame Rachel de Souza said the children, who went missing from spring 2022, were 1.4 times more likely than their peers to have a special educational need, 1.5 times more likely to live in a deprived neighbourhood and 2.7 times more likely to be a child in need with a social worker.
The research also revealed that many of the children were due to transition to secondary school before they went missing from education.
Dame de Souza said there was a ‘shocking lack of urgency’ in trying to trace children, with councils hampered by poor resources, insufficient access to the right data and inadequate powers.
The commissioner said there was not even a shared national definition of ‘missing from education’ and found inconsistencies in how councils tackle the issue.
She made a fresh call for a unique ID for every child to stop them 'falling through the gaps' and help them back into education.
She also said there should be a reliable database of children missing education, improved data-sharing arrangements, support for families with practical issues like uniform costs, and better support over school holidays for children transitioning between education stages.
