Children missing from state education: estimating numbers using linked administrative data

Main findings

Our approach found approximately 6.4% of children (27,000) in GP registration data could not be found in state education records on 20 April 2021.

Possible reasons for children not found in state education records

• Children educated in independent schools (approx. 8,000).
• Electively home educated children (approx. 4,000).
• Children educated in England.
• Data linkage issues, possibly due to discrepancies in recording of name, address or date of birth.
• Over-coverage in GP registration data (e.g. due to children moving away from Wales but not de-registering with their GP).
• Other reasons.

These factors suggest the overall percentage of children missing from the education data represents an upper band estimate of children missing from state education.

There could be a wide variation of children missing from state education between local authorities. These differences may be partly explained by the presence of independent schools and proximity to schools in England of some local authorities.

The approach also suggests a difference between school ages (possibly between about 4.9% to 9% increasing with age).

This research has been undertaken as part of Administrative Data Research (ADR) Wales planned programme of work 2022-2026 (ADR Wales) funded by the Economic Social Research Council.