A new report has found more children than ever are not in school, with the number of lost days of learning up nearly 70% in five years.
It is the most vulnerable children who skip school, are excluded, or simply disappear from education.
The analysis found that children lost 6.8 million days of learning in the autumn term before the COVID pandemic (2019/20) due to suspensions and absences, but the figure was 11.5 million days in the same period in 2023/24.
The report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and education charity The Difference also found for every child that is permanently excluded, 10 other children experience an “invisible” move that is not recorded in national data or overseen by local authorities or trusts.
This includes “managed moves” – which are informal agreements between schools – as well as the illegal practice of off-rolling.
The report says: “One-third of children who experience one of these hidden moves goes to an unknown destination – meaning the Department for Education has no idea where or whether they are still being schooled.”
Sky News spoke to Gary Johns, from east London, who left school at the age of 14 and never went back. He decided to walk out after spending days in “isolation” being punished for bad behaviour.
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He said: “It was like a caravan in the school grounds. You stay there all day long and they bring your lunch and food to you.
“You are not allowed to move from the desk unless you want to go to the toilet, where you can only go to the toilet from break and lunch – other than that you are there the whole day.”
Gary was out of education for a year and says he was not offered alternative options for education.
A mentor from the charity CAPE eventually got through to him by knocking on his door every day and urging him to go to the gym to build his confidence. Now aged 17, he is taking a carpentry course.
Hussein Hussein from CAPE Mentors said many schools try to avoid taking on children who have been excluded from somewhere else.
He said: “The system just doesn’t work at the moment. We are in England, we should be saying ‘kids go to school.’ But the reality is ‘oh no they’ve been out so long we’ve got our GCSE results that’s not a risk I’m willing to take.’
“And the schools are smart, they are not going to say that. Instead, it’s ‘we don’t think it’s in the kid’s best interest’ – which is a load of nonsense. It is in every kid’s interest to be in school.”
Taejon Joseph-Andrews, 15-years-old, is in a pupil referral unit called the Haringey Learning Partnership.
In the space of two years, he was excluded from one school and managed out of three others.
He says his behaviour was triggered by grief which the schools failed to understand.
He said: “They were just looking at my record and judging me based on my record and I don’t think that’s fair, especially when you don’t know what that child’s been through.
“I lost my nan – that was hard for me. I was staying with her as well, and she’d always been there for me.
“Losing someone as important as that – it just drove me crazy.”
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Taejon says at a time when he was having to feed and clothe himself, he was ‘on trial’ at various schools and being set targets he could not achieve.
But he believes with the help of the Haringey Learning Partnership he will be able to get back into mainstream education by year 11 and take his GCSEs.
The report calls on the government to introduce legislation to monitor whenever a child is moved out of their school, “to make sure we know where – and whether – our most vulnerable children are being educated.”
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It also wants to improve the admissions practices of schools to ensure they do not avoid taking in disadvantaged children.
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It suggests that an investment of £850m for inclusion would support half a million children, reduce lost learning and ultimately pay for itself.
Kiran Gill from The Difference told Sky News: “For every permanently excluded child we know they are going to cost the state at least £170,000 because they are going to struggle to access work, we will lose tax receipts, we are going to have higher benefits expenditure.
“But that’s just the kids we know about. For every prenatally excluded child, we’ve got 10 more who are invisibly moving around the system.”
