Written evidence submitted anonymously (SFC0071)

DfE Accredited Online Schools: A readily available solution to help persistently absent pupils back to education, protect young people’s mental health and save public funds

1. This evidence seeks to highlight a particular group of children with unmet special educational needs where there is already an affordable and viable learning solution available, which the government is not using to its full potential.
2. This evidence is written by a small a group of parents advocating for accredited online schools and championing them as an existing solution to help the increasing number of children missing school because of emotionally based school avoidance (EBSA). We are calling on the DfE to establish an efficient pathway that allows families to opt for online education if their child’s needs are not met in mainstream school. We have paused the publication of our campaign until the select committee evidence is published in the hope that this route will provide greater traction.

The overall picture on the support available and outcomes achieved for those with SEN

3. Our children are no longer able to attend school in-person because their social, emotional, and mental health needs are not met within the mainstream system. EBSA prevents them attending school for reasons connected to their neurodiversity and/or mental health difficulties, such as anxiety and depression – which all fall within the definition of special educational needs under the SEND Code of Practice[1]. 
4. For our children, attendance at mainstream school is an impossibility - it is a hostile place, unable to meet their SEND needs or support their mental health[2]. Support, if offered at all, is often completely inadequate. On the days they are unable to attend lessons, children are left at home with little or no access to work, or put in “student support” and “SEN hubs” where they do worksheets and receive no teaching - far from accessing the broad curriculum available to their peers. Yet our children are capable of and willing to learn.
5. Over months and sometimes years the distress of attending school has taken a great toll on our children’s mental health.  We have watched them push themselves to breaking point just doing their best to show up every day at immense personal cost, gradually missing more and more school. Until finally, as parents we felt we were left with no choice but to prioritise their mental health over their education and take them out of school entirely. We all tried so hard to get school to work and we still want it to.  This is NOT elective home education.
6. Thankfully, we have managed to find an alternative solution in the form of DfE accredited online schools, which have transformed our children’s experiences of education and their wellbeing. Learning online allows them to engage in full-time education again, working towards GCSEs and A-levels, enabling them to thrive, meet their full potential and be an asset to the future workforce. Accessing this effective provision was much more difficult than it needed to be, highlighting to us that online education is simply not being used to its full potential to help address EBSA.
7. This issue also has a devastating effect on families. We spend years fighting to get effective support for our children within an obscure system that seems designed not to put children’s interests first. This puts families under enormous stress, disrupting work, impacting family finances, putting strain on relationships, and leading to physical and mental health problems in parents and caregivers.

Government action to create a sustainable SEN system and restore confidence.

8. We believe that accredited online education provides a viable solution for many young people not able to attend school for emotional, social and mental health reasons. By using proven innovations in educational practice and technology to take their education to them while they cannot access mainstream school, online schooling could enable thousands more pupils to return to education, improving their long-term employment prospects and mental health.
9. The recent National Audit Office report highlights the perilous state of SEND funding. Using a DfE accredited online school in appropriate cases, at the point of need, could provide a more affordable and sustainable solution compared to specialist placements and assessments, also saving the long-term costs of thousands of children facing minimal educational and employment opportunities and potential ongoing mental health issues[3].
10. However, the current pathway to this form of education is long and difficult. Current DfE guidance discourages remote education (except in very temporary circumstances), even when their own accreditation scheme[4] has judged the provider to meet the requisite teaching and safeguarding standards. This makes head teachers reluctant to authorise or fund it and discourages LAs from granting it under EHCPs or EOTAS packages. Therefore, although demand for DfE accredited online schools is growing, it is still only an option for those who happen to have forward-thinking professionals on their side and/or the means to fund it themselves. This is manifestly unfair, creating an unnecessary barrier to education and putting these already vulnerable children at further disadvantage.
11. The good news is that the ingredients for making online education more widely available are already in place:
• DfE’s online education accreditation scheme (OEAS), which ensures teaching standards and safeguarding;
• the demand and need for accredited online education provision, and the capability of accredited providers to scale up;
• the legal duty on Local Authorities to secure suitable, full-time education that meets the needs and capabilities of each child[5];
• the economic case to ensure value for money, with the cost of accredited online school (typically between £7,000-9,000 per annum) being similar to that of supporting a SEND student in mainstream school, as well as comparing favourably to the specialist settings (typically between £20,000 and £100,000);
• a track record of GCSE and A-level results comparable to mainstream school[6]; and
• the stories of success like ours that illustrate how online learning can work for many children locked out of education.
12. There is an urgent need to ensure the education system is truly inclusive of the full range of students' needs and to encourage more children back into education. A system that prioritises attendance in mainstream school over access to education cannot also meet the needs of all children. DfE accredited online schools are a viable and immediately available solution, as part of a sustainable SEND system, that could provide thousands more pupils, absent from school for emotional, social and mental health reasons, with access to a suitable full-time education that meets their needs and capabilities - as is their right.
13. We call on the DfE to establish an efficient pathway that allows families to opt for a DfE accredited online education provider if their child’s needs are not met in mainstream school. This would enable local authorities to meet their legal duty to provide a suitable education for the many children like ours.
14. We believe this could be implemented quickly by adapting relevant DfE guidance to recognise the legitimacy of accredited online education providers as a readily available solution to help get more persistently absent children, with unmet social, emotional, and mental health needs, back into education.  Any implementation should involve consultation with families with lived experiences of these issues.
15. A key question for the Committee to ask the Government would be what role accredited online school plays in a sustainable SEND system given it is a proven and affordable solution for educating those unable to attend mainstream school for SEND and mental health reasons.

November 2024