Children missing education

What we mean by children missing from education

In Salford each year children either fail to start in a new school or appropriate education provision or simply become lost from school rolls and fail to re-register at a new school when they move into the city.

These 'missing' children can be amongst the most vulnerable in our city. It is essential that all services work together to identify and re-engage these children back into appropriate education provision as quickly as possible.

Children who remain disengaged from education are potentially exposed to higher degrees of risk that could include engagement in antisocial or criminal behaviour, social disengagement and/or sexual exploitation.

The requirements for all schools and academies are to: 

• Inform their local authority in every circumstance when they are about to delete a pupil’s name from the admission register; under all 15 grounds (Annex A) 

• Inform their local authority of the pupil's destination school and home address if the pupil is moving to a new school (where they can reasonably obtain this information); and 

• Provide information to their local authority when registering new pupils, including the pupil's address and previous school (again where they can reasonably obtain this information).

Changes to Pupil Registration Regulations September 2016 

• All additions to and deletions from the school register must be reported to the local authority within five days. 

• The guidance will place a greater responsibility on schools to carry out ‘reasonable enquiries’ when the whereabouts of a pupil is unknown prior to deleting from the school roll. 

• In addition, there are two other proposed amendments relating to sections 8(1)(f)(iii) and 8(1)(h)(iii) of the Regulations which will require ‘reasonable enquiries’ to identify a pupil’s whereabouts to be performed collaboratively between the school and local authority where there is continuous absence after a grant of leave. 

Currently in Salford we accept referrals from schools via the Children Missing Education (CME) referral box.

Other local authorities and members of the public can notify the local authority of CME on the council website.

If an enquiry comes through from another authority, and/or Salford Children’s Services teams, with relevant details, a referral form. 

The referral form will inform the CME team:

• Details of the child, name, date of birth, Unique Pupil Number (if known) etc.
• Details of the child’s current and new address (if known), parents names and contact details.
• The reason they have been removed from roll (should indicate one of the categories in Annex A in the guidance).
• Details of the new school if known.
• In the case of a child and family whose whereabouts are unknown it will prompt referrer to make a Children Missing Education referral to the local authority.

Make a referral now

If you have any information about a child you think may be missing from school and not receiving a suitable education please complete our online form.

Do you know a child missing education? Tell us about it

Alternatively, if you work with children, please download and complete the children missing from education form from the downloadable documents area.

If you want further information, statutory guidance for local authorities is available on the GOV.UK website. 

The privacy notice for Education Inclusion can be found on our GDPR page.

This page was last updated on 5 May 2023