Pupils educated other than at school: September 2019 to August 2020

The most recent data in this report relates to the situation as at January 2020. The report does not therefore relate to the period of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic but the data collection was affected by the pandemic as described below.

Note on quality of data

The 2019/20 data collection was not completed due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. For this reason, only 14 local authorities were able to submit data and this headline only relates to those authorities. We are publishing this release in the interest of transparency.

The data has not undergone the full validation process this year, in particular it has not been part of the validation process as part of the Welsh Local Government Finance Settlement which happens in May each year. The data may therefore be of a lower quality than previous years and any comparisons over time should be treated with caution. We do not have any information on which to estimate what the impact of this might be on the quality of the data.

The local authorities that were able to provide data were: Blaenau Gwent, Bridgend, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Conwy, Denbighshire, Monmouthshire, Neath Port Talbot, Newport, Powys, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Swansea, The Vale of Glamorgan and Torfaen.

The 14 local authorities that submitted data accounted for 45% of all educated other than at school pupils in 2019. Those who were not able to provide the data include some authorities who in 2018/19 had some of the highest rates per 1,000 pupils.

Main points for these 14 authorities

• 1,292 pupils were recorded as being educated other than at school, with 1,028 of these receiving their main education outside of school.
• 2.2 pupils out of every 1,000 were receiving their main education outside of school in 2019/20.
• 7 out of 10 pupils whose main education is other than at school were boys.
• Pupil referral units remain the most frequently-used education provision for pupils whose main education is other than at school.
• Of the local authorities with elected home educated pupils, 8 out of every 1,000 pupils aged 5 to 15 were reported to be electively home educated.