Background
This release provides data collected via the ‘School placements for children from outside of the UK’ survey from local authorities in England.
It provides data on the number of school place applications for children from outside of the UK, split by the following countries of origin:
- Afghanistan (arrivals via Afghanistan Relocation and Assistance Policy or Afghanistan Citizens Resettlement Scheme)
- Ukraine (arrivals via the Family Scheme or Homes for Ukraine)
- Hong Kong (arrivals via the Hong Kong British Nationals (Overseas) welcome programme)
Data was also asked on applications from ‘All other countries outside of the UK’, however, because many local authorities have reported not currently holding this information, it is not including in this publication.
Data is also included on the number of offers made within 15 days of application. For children waiting for an offer, local authorities and schools will be working on the process of finding a suitable place within 15 school days. There are many reasons why some children have not been offered a place and why some applications may take longer than 15 days to process, including where the Fair Access Protocol (opens in a new tab) is used.
There are several reasons why a family with school age children may not have made an application immediately. For example:
- They may have recently arrived and not yet applied for a place;
- They may be undertaking remote learning of their country’s own curriculum;
- Some may have applied for Further Education;
- The Ukrainian compulsory school age starts at 7 and so some families may be unaware that compulsory school age starts at 5 in the UK;
- The Ukrainian school year ends on 1 June, some families may be unaware the UK school year has not yet ended.
Data quality
This data has been collected and analysed quickly to inform the Department's response to the resettlement of families from Afghanistan, Hong Kong and Ukraine. The Department recognises the operational importance of publishing this data in a timely manner and so is publishing this it as management information.
The data is collected from local authorities on a voluntary basis with the latest return covering the period 1 September 2021 to 31 August 2022. In the latest return the overall response rate was 48%. This lower response rate is reflective of the timing of the return over the school holidays.
Adjustments for non-response
Imputations to adjust for non-response have been made to produce national and regional estimates. All local authority figures are as reported. Nil returns and partial nil returns (where a number is unknown by the local authority) are presented as an ‘x’. In recognition of the uncertainty of these adjustments, all national and regional figures have been rounded to the nearest 100. Any figure less than 50 has been presented as ‘low’.
The imputation methodology follows:
- If a local authority provided data in the latest survey, that data is used.
- If no return was provided in the latest survey, data is used from the previous survey or the previous imputation. An uplift is applied to these figures based on changes seen between the two surveys for local authorities who supplied returns for both.
The DfE will review this methodology as the series progresses.
For information on the previous imputation and further adjustments to the data as a result of quality checks, see the ‘Methodology’ section.