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More than 11,500 children go missing from education in the space of one year

More than 11,500 children in England went missing from education over the course of one year, many with “particular vulnerabilities that makes tracing them even more urgent”.
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A report from the children’s commissioner for England – Dame Rachel de Souza – finds that these children disappeared from the education system between Spring 2022 and Spring 2023 despite having previously attended school.

Official data is not collected nationally on children missing education (CME) but estimates based on the little information that does exist suggests that as many as 117,000 children could be missing from education at any one time.

Separate government data has shown that around 40% of live CME cases have been open for more than 12 weeks – a whole school term – while 13% have been open for more than a year.

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