Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of secondary schools that have removed pupils from the school roll prior to public examinations.

The information is not readily available and can only be provided at disproportionate cost.

A pupil 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.

We are clear that the practice of off-rolling, whereby children are removed from school rolls without formal exclusion in ways that are in the interests of the school rather than the pupil, is unacceptable. Informal or unofficial exclusions are unlawful and we have previously written to schools to remind them of the rules on exclusions.

We are continuing to work with Ofsted to tackle the practice of off-rolling. Ofsted already considered records of children taken off-roll, but they consulted on proposals with a strengthened focus on this issue. Since September 2019, Ofsted’s new education inspection framework details that 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.