Children missing from education
Received: 18 December 2025
I would like to submit a freedom of information request about your statistics for children missing from education (CME). I am working on a team comprised of researchers from the University of Sunderland and the University of Bristol which is aiming to investigate trends in CME across the UK.The questions can be found below. I appreciate that you may not be able to provide a response to all of these questions but any information at all would be extremely helpful. Please let me know if you require any clarification or more specificity in the wording of any of the questions.The population we are asking about is 5-16 year olds in your local authority from the most recent academic year (or the most recent year of data available):1.Total number of children in your LA2.Total number of children registered at school 3.Number of children who are electively home educated (EHE)4.Number of children who are receiving 'Education otherwise than at school' (EOTAS) 5.Number of children awaiting a school placement 6.Number of children missing from education (CME)7.Whether you record reasons for why a child is missing from educationa.If so, the number of children under each reason8.If possible, the number of CME by the following demographic characteristicsa.Genderb.Agec.NC yeard.Ethnicitye.FSM eligibilityf.SEN statusg.ESL statush.Known to social care
Outcome / Documents
- Response (some exempt) - application/pdf - Download