Alternative provision: findings and recommendations from Ofsted’s three-year survey

Alternative provision
The findings and
recommendations from Ofsted’s
three-year survey
with discussion activities for schools, local
authorities/partnerships/academy chains
and providers

Alternative provision 2016 | 2
Context for this slide pack
This slidepack gives the overview of the survey, with the
key findings and the recommendations. Each section
after that includes extracts from the information given
in the report and suggests discussion points for
schools, local authorities/partnerships/academy chains
and providers. It can therefore be adapted for different
audiences as required.

Background
 In 2011 Ofsted published a survey about schools’ use
of off-site alternative provision (AP).
 Many of the findings were not positive. At that time,
despite some pupils’ evident enjoyment of their
placements, and some very good work by some
schools and providers, there were too many
weaknesses in the use and quality of provision.
 Too many pupils were in unsuitable placements, were
not paid enough attention by their schools and were
not achieving as well as they should.

Background
 The DfE then commissioned the Taylor review of
alternative provision. Findings were similar, citing
many weaknesses in alternative provision.
 In response, the DfE commissioned Ofsted to carry
out another
survey of alternative provision, this time taking place over thre
 The survey was intended to find out whether the
picture was improving.
 A
report on the interim findings was published in July 2014
.

Methodology
 Inspectors visited 165 schools and 448 of the
providers those schools used.
 All the schools had been judged to be requires
improvement, good or outstanding at their previous
inspection.
 Inspectors usually visited two to four providers that
each school used.
 Providers were selected in conjunction with the school,
concentrating on unregistered providers (rather than
pupil referral units (PRUs) or colleges).

Schools’ use of alternative provision

Numbers involved
 Across the 165 schools, a total of 3,849 pupils in
Years 9 to 11 were attending AP away from the site of
their school for at least part of each week – 4% of the
total number on the schools’ rolls.
 10% were identified as disabled or with special
educational needs.
 35 pupils – less than 1% – were looked after.

Numbers by year group

Cost of alternative provision
 Schools visited had spent on average around £54,000
on AP during the year prior to the survey inspection,
with amounts ranging from £1,000 to £280,000
depending on the number of pupils involved.
 The average amount spent by the six PRUs was
significantly larger than other schools at around
£450,000, with amounts ranging from £46,000 for 57
pupils to almost £1.8 million for provision for 148
pupils.

Main findings
 More schools appear to be refusing to use provision they do
not think is of a good enough standard. Where good quality
provision was not available, some of the schools were developing in-
house alternatives.
 Some schools are still not taking enough responsibility for
ensuring the suitability of the placements they set up. A few of the
schools in the survey placed pupils at an off-site provider without having
visited first to check its safety and suitability.
 Schools generally paid careful attention to the checks providers
had carried out on their staff. However there is no specific
reference to off-site AP in the government’s latest guidance on
safeguarding. This situation sometimes leaves schools uncertain about
what is required and what would be considered to be good practice with
regard to checks on alternative providers.

Main findings
 Alternative providers are often not well enough informed
about aspects such as child protection, the use of social
media and e-safety. Providers frequently encountered serious
safeguarding concerns which they had to refer to schools. However,
only a quarter had received any written information about child
protection from schools.
 Very few providers had received any guidance about e-safety, the
safe use of social media or social networking. The majority had not
attended any formal child protection training.
 A small number of providers go against regulations about
registration. They are taking more than five pupils on a full-time basis
when they should not be doing so. Schools do not always check
providers’ registration status properly or at all, and still send
pupils to the provision.

Main findings
All schools visited had appropriate procedures to check that pupils
had arrived at the placement when they should and to follow up any
non-attendance.
A greater proportion of schools than in 2011 are now working in
partnership with each other to find and commission AP. At its best,
this practice leads to a rigorous process for assuring the quality of
the provision and rejecting anything that is not up to standard.

Main findings
 Some pupils still miss out on English and mathematics teaching at
school on the days when they attend their AP, although this picture is
better than in 2011. There were substantial gaps in some pupils’
timetables in almost one in 10 of the schools visited, either with
insufficient provision for English and mathematics, or timetables that
were too narrowly focused on a very few activities across each week.
When pupils do miss key subjects, they often find it very difficult to catch
up.
 In a quarter of the schools, the curriculum for pupils who attended AP on
a part-time basis was too narrow. While this is an improving picture
since 2011, it means that these pupils do not have the opportunities they
require to prepare them for their next steps in education or training. More
positively, the vast majority of pupils who attend AP are taking English
and mathematics qualifications, usually at an appropriate level.

Main findings
 Pupils who attend AP full-time still sometimes study a very
narrow range of subjects and the English and mathematics
qualifications they are enabled to take are only at a very low
level.
 Occasionally, pupils who whose AP placements were
theoretically ‘full time’ were not actually receiving a full-time
education.
 Too many schools lacked clarity about what constituted
‘good progress’ for their pupils who attended AP. In some
cases, individualised target setting led to a low level of challenge
and low expectations of performance that were out of line with
national expectations.

Main findings
 It remains the case that too few schools evaluate properly the
quality of teaching that their pupils are receiving at the AP. This
hampers their ability to evaluate the quality of the provision
effectively. Less than a third of the schools visited carried out any
systematic evaluation of the quality of teaching and learning at the
placements they were using, either individually or in conjunction with
the local authority or partnership.
 Schools now generally share good quality and valuable information
about individual pupils with the providers. This is a significant
improvement on the situation in 2011. However, sometimes the
information about pupils’ academic capabilities was insufficient and
providers did not fully understand how to use it to support learning
and promote achievement.

Main findings
 The vast majority of providers had carefully assessed the risks
that pupils might encounter during their placements, either
through the activity they were doing or through their own behaviour.
The best practice was seen where schools and providers took joint
responsibility for ensuring that good quality assessments of any risk
were carried out. However around 7% of providers had not had any
conversations with schools about potential risks, or were unable to
provide any evidence of the risk assessment processes to
inspectors.
 Providers are usually safe places with a reasonable quality of
accommodation and resources. The best provision seen during the
survey was of a very high standard. However, there was often a
contrast between high quality accommodation for vocational courses
and classrooms unsuited to promoting high academic standards.

Main findings
 The overwhelming majority of pupils had positive
comments to make about:
 their enjoyment of the provision
 what they were learning
 how well they were supported
 the impact the provision was having on their
behaviour, attitudes, attendance and outcomes at
school.

Recommendations for school leaders
School leaders should:
check carefully the registration status of each provider they use
and check whether they should be registered if they are not
never use AP that is contravening the regulations about
registration
ensure that they check whether staff at registered alternative
provision have had the appropriate checks, for example Disclosure
and Barring Service (DBS) checks
consider fully the potential risks involved in unregistered
placements where no staff or not all staff have DBS or other relevant
checks and act to minimise these

Recommendations for school leaders,
cont.
 discuss, agree and give to providers information in writing about
social networking, the use of social media and e-safety, making
the school’s expectations clear
 give providers good quality information in writing about the
school’s expectations for child protection and procedures they
should follow if they have a concern about a pupil
 support providers to access appropriate safeguarding training
and information for providers
 systematically evaluate the quality of teaching and learning at the
AP they use, and the impact of this on pupils’ progress towards
the qualifications they are studying at their placements

Recommendations for school leaders,
cont.
 systematically evaluate the academic, personal and social
progress being made by all pupils who attend AP, ensuring that
the targets set for academic progress are suitably challenging
 consider ways to track and evaluate the impact of AP on pupils’
employability skills
 ensure that governors understand the progress made by pupils
who attend AP so they can ensure that decisions made about
value for money are well-informed.

Recommendations for the DfE
The DfE should:
give schools clear guidance about how they can best check the
safety and suitability of staff working in unregistered alternative
provision
strongly consider revising the threshold for providers to register as
independent schools
consider the findings of this survey alongside the recent
government consultation about out-of-school education settings
give Ofsted direct access, as necessary, to all alternative providers
that take pupils of compulsory school age for six hours or more.

Recommendations for Ofsted
Ofsted will:
continue to evaluate thoroughly the use of AP in all
section 5 inspections
include a special focus on AP in a proportion of
inspections of secondary schools, to include visits to
alternative providers.

Quick discussion:
When does an alternative provider
have to be registered?

Unregistered providers
A provider of AP should be registered as an independent
school if it caters full-time for five or more pupils of
compulsory school age or one such pupil who is looked
after or has a statement of special educational needs
(DfE, Alternative Provision, 2013)
NB – if the provision is run by the local authority it has to
be registered as a pupil referral unit, not an independent
school – but the same criteria apply.
Registered = inspected; not registered = not
inspected

 Throughout the survey, HMI found schools that were
sending their pupils to providers that should have been
registered as independent schools.
 Provision that should have been registered by a local
authority as a pupil referral unit was also found.
 A common issue was where a school was sending
only one pupil to a provider, or was sending pupils
only part-time, but had failed to check how many
pupils from other schools were also attending the
provider and on what basis.

 Schools too often assumed that the provider would
have registered with the DfE if they needed to, but this
was not always the case.
 Altogether, Ofsted referred 17 providers to the DfE
following survey visits, 14 of which the DfE judged
should have been registered as independent schools
or pupil referral units.
 These have all since closed, or registered and
therefore will be inspected in the future.

Schools
How many, and which, of the providers you use are registered (as
a college, a school, a PRU)?
How do you know if they are registered or not?
If you use some that are unregistered, how would you know if the
need for them to register changed (for example,
if another school started to send more pupils
which tipped the numbers into the requirement
to register)?
Do you need to change any of your
practice to take the registration issue into
account?

Local authorities/partnerships/academy chains
If you keep a central list of providers for schools to refer to, do you
know if the providers on that list are registered – and how do you
know?
How do you know whether their registration status is correct (i.e.
whether there are any that are unregistered but should be
registered)?
If there are some on the list that are unregistered,
how would you know if the need for them to
register changed (i.e. if numbers increased)?
Do you need to change any of your
practice to take the registration issue into
account?

Providers (unregistered)
Are you confident that you meet the requirements for being
unregistered?
If you take any pupils full-time, how do you know if any of them are
looked after of have a statement of special educational needs or a
education, health and care plan? Are you confident that the school
makes this clear to you when a pupils begins?
Registered providers
If you have made the move from
non-registered to registered, what can
you tell other providers about making this a
successful process?

Safeguarding and health and safety

Visiting the placements
 Of the 448 providers that were visited by inspectors as part of
this survey, 5% reported that the school had not visited at all,
including prior to the placement being set up.
 A very small number had visited in advance of the placement
but not since. Of these, some had visits arranged for later in
the term.
 The majority (70%) of providers reported that school staff
visited their pupil at the placement at least once each term.
 Of these, a small number received at least weekly visits from
school staff. This tended to be where the pupil or pupils had
more complex needs and a greater need for support.

Visiting the placements
‘Where schools do not visit the alternative
provision they are using they are reliant on
second-hand information not only about
essential aspects of safeguarding but also about
the pupil’s general welfare and progress.’
Ofsted 2016

Schools
What concerns you about the statistics you’ve just heard?
Is it ever acceptable for a school not to visit the alternative
provision they are using for their pupils?
Where does your practice fit into this? At what
point do you visit the provision you are going
to use or are using, and for what purpose?
Does what you’ve heard and the discussion
you’ve just had with colleagues make
you think you need to change your
practice?

Local authorities/partnerships/
academy chains
If you have your own system of visiting
providers, what do you then expect of
schools?
Does what you’ve heard and the
discussion you’ve just had with
colleagues make you think you need
to change your practice?

Providers
If a school does not visit, what do you do
about this? Is the pupil still allowed to
start their placement?
Does what you’ve heard and the discussion
you’ve just had with colleagues make
you think you need to change your
practice?

Assessing potential risks
 87% of the providers visited had risk assessments of some kind in place.
 In around half, ‘risk assessment’ was a process that involved discussions
between the school and the provider to evaluate the potential risks for
each pupil at the placement, prior to the pupil starting.
 This process enabled the school to tell the provider about the pupils’
needs, including any behaviours or special needs that might be relevant,
and for the provider to consider these in the context of the placement, for
example when using particular equipment or associating with members
of the public.
 Following the discussion a risk assessment summary was produced to
show how these risks could be minimised.

 In the other half of the providers that had risk assessments in place,
these were more of a paper exercise than a process.
 Risk assessment documents had usually been generated by the school
or in some cases by the provider or the local authority but there had not
been any discussions between the school and provider prior to pupils’
placements about whether the assessment was accurate or appropriate
for each pupil.
 Just over half of the schools surveyed offered pupils comprehensive
briefings or other activities related to how to keep safe in their
placements before they went.
 However, 21% of schools (35) relied wholly on the providers to brief
pupils on-site at the start of their placements on how to keep safe,
without knowing first-hand whether this was of sufficient or good enough
quality.

Strongest practice included a number of the following elements.
Detailed discussions held between the school, provider, pupil and parent or
carer in advance of the placement and at regular intervals.
Both the activity itself and the pupil in the context of the activity assessed
for risk and the specific risk assessment agreed at the first meeting between
the provider and the school.
Risk assessments completed by the provider and checked by the school.
Frequent checks made by the school, and the provider ensuring that health
and safety was a high priority when pupils were working on practical
activities such as car maintenance.

 Health and safety risks were taught as part of the induction process or as
part of the course and risk assessments were adapted accordingly.
 Risk assessments included those associated with travelling to and from
the provider.
Weaknesses included the following.
 Generic rather than individual risk assessment.
 Established or historic relationship between the provider and school
deemed to be sufficient so no risk assessments.
 No systematic approach to risk assessment from the school – leaving it
up to the provider.
 The school failing to look at the risk assessments carried out by the
provider.

 Little thought given to risks associated with certain aspects of a
placement, for example those where pupils could mix freely with the
public.
 The school trusting providers or local authority to carry out risk
assessments without checking this happened or relying on other
agencies to carry these out.
 The school assuming the provider will have a risk assessment process
but not checking.
 The provider expecting the school to produce a risk assessment if
needed and relying on them for this to happen.
 A lack of visits and checks by school staff despite having challenging
pupils on placements.

Child protection
 Only a quarter of providers had received any written information
about child protection from the school sending the pupil.
 Only around one in 10 of the providers had received full copies of
the school’s child protection policies.
 Only 7% (33) of the providers had had any information from or
discussion with schools about the use of social networking.
 The majority of providers had not undergone any formal child
protection training.
 Laptops used at alternative providers did not always have
appropriate firewalls or filters to prevent pupils accessing
inappropriate material.

Schools
How do you assess the potential risks of an alternative provision
placement for your pupils?
How do you check that these risk assessments remain up to date as things
change – for example, the pupil’s own behaviours or needs, other pupils
starting at the placement, different activities being carried out?
What child protection information do you provide,
including about e-safety?
Are there any elements of the good practice
that you might now consider including
or any aspects of your own good
practice that you would add to
this list?

academy chains
If you hold a central list of alternative provision, how do you ensure
that they are safe and how do you assess risks for different groups
of pupils who are likely to attend?
If you have a quality assurance role for alternative provision, how
do you assess risk for different pupils?
How do you check that these risk assessments
remain up to date as things change –
for example, the pupil’s own behaviours or
needs, other pupils starting at the
placement, different activities being carried out?
How do you ensure that child protection is secure?

Providers
How do you assess the risks of your placement? Does the risk differ for
each pupil? How does the school help you with this process? Is there more
that they could do to improve the process further? What else could you ask
for (for example, specific information?)
How do you check that these risk assessments
remain up to date as things change – for
example, the pupil’s own behaviours or needs,
other pupils starting at the placement,
different activities being carried out?
How well informed are you about child protection,
including e-safety?
Is there anything you might do differently in the
future to make sure pupils are safe?

Curriculum
Better than in 2011 but still needs improvement…
In 75% of schools visited, inspectors found that the curriculum offered to
pupils attending AP included English and mathematics courses that led to
accreditation and that it was broad and balanced overall.
In another 16% of schools, inspectors noted some lack of breadth or depth.
Here, a few subjects gave way to AP, but the core subjects were still being
studied.
There were still substantial gaps in some pupils’ timetables in almost 10%
of the schools visited (16), either with insufficient provision for English and
mathematics, or timetables that included English and mathematics but were
too narrowly focused on a very few activities across each week.
(NB percentages are rounded so do not add up to 100)

Curriculum for pupils attending alternative
provision part time
 In the best examples AP ran alongside or incorporated English,
mathematics and science, offered a range of vocational and academic
options, and ensured full participation in programmes of PE, RE,
citizenship and PSHE.
 Schools often achieved a balanced curriculum by AP taking place on a
day or on half days each week that the school reserved for optional
subjects.
 In some other schools, the cohort attending AP attended at a common
time and the pupils were taught English and mathematics as a discrete
group on their return - no core lessons missed.
 Where small numbers of pupils attended AP, English and mathematics
were sometimes missed. Catch-up arrangements were largely fine but
occasionally weak.

Curriculum for pupils attending AP part time
 AP replaced an aspect of pupils’ curriculum diet. This varied
widely between schools but was often humanities, modern
language or arts options.
 In a very small minority of instances, subjects important to the
health and personal development of pupils, including PE, RE,
citizenship and PSHE were also missing from pupils’ timetables.
 Provision that took account of shortcomings in pupils’ timetables
included focus days when the timetable was suspended.

Curriculum for pupils attending AP full time
 Providers generally ensured that pupils had a similar breadth of
curriculum as they would in mainstream education.
 The curriculum was often supplemented with a range of
counselling, advice and work-related experiences relevant to
needs of pupils who often had some of the more complex and
longstanding behavioural, emotional and social difficulties.
 Smaller providers often had links with mainstream schools to
access specialist resources, such as science or technology
rooms.
 However, not all schools that commissioned full-time provision
checked adequately on the quality of the curriculum on offer.

Curriculum for pupils attending AP full time
Weaker practice:
In six of the schools visited where most or all pupils who attended
AP did so full time, inspectors found key shortcomings, including:
work was pitched at too low a level given the pupils’ capabilities
very narrow curriculum, for example wholly focused on literacy,
numeracy and ICT and missing out PSHE education, sex and
relationships education and PE
little or no English and mathematics
few lessons and mainly the social activities of a youth club
some pupils were not being provided with full-time education or
training of 25 hours a week.

Accreditation
Best examples
Schools recognised that pupils needed to gain the best possible
qualifications that they could in English, mathematics and a range of
other relevant subjects, as well as developing their personal, social
and employability skills. Schools focused strongly on making sure
that pupils were supported as well as possible in all these aspects,
and not just to achieve well on their AP courses.
Weakest examples
Overall aspirations for pupils attending AP were too low. Too much
focus was placed on re-engagement alone and the focus on
academic achievement was marginalised.

Accreditation
 Unless they attended AP full-time, most pupils took GCSE English and
mathematics at school.
 Data gathered for 2,200 pupils over the three-year period of the survey.
 Almost three quarters of these pupils gained a GCSE qualification in
English with the same proportion attaining a GCSE grade in
mathematics.
 Almost half of the 2,200 pupils were successful in gaining a GCSE
qualification in both English and mathematics. About one fifth attained a
grade A* to C in one or both of these GCSEs.
 About a quarter of pupils gained accreditation in qualifications other than
GCSE in English, with a slightly smaller proportion in mathematics,
usually functional skills or adult literacy and numeracy.
 Wide variation in attainment of AP pupils from school to school.

Accreditation
 Almost all AP used by the schools led to some form of
accreditation.
 The qualifications were closely linked to the specialist settings of
the AP and often provided direct progression to local college
courses post-16.
 Qualifications were usually at level 1 and sometimes level 2. At
times, pupils were studying for level 1 qualifications at their
placement but level 2 at school – level 1 was not ambitious
enough for them.

Progress from starting points
 Too many schools lacked clarity about what constituted
‘good progress’ for their pupils who attended AP.
 In some cases, individualised target setting led to a low
level of challenge and low expectations of performance that
were out of line with national expectations.
 Sometimes, there was a lack of emphasis on helping pupils
to accelerate their progress to make up for previous
underachievement once AP had helped them to re-engage
with school and with learning.

Schools
Consider either:
To what extent does your curriculum organisation help or hinder
the pupils who attend AP? Is the curriculum broad enough?
How do you make sure they do not miss out on crucial elements of
the curriculum such as PSHE or sex and relationships education?
Or
What do you consider to be good progress
for your pupils who attend AP? Are you
confident that this an aspirational definition?
Is there any mismatch between the level of
the accreditation that your pupils take at
school and at AP?

academy chains
If you commission AP on behalf of your schools, or place the
names of AP providers on a list, what are your criteria for
determining whether the curriculum is appropriate?
What level qualifications do your providers offer?
Is having accredited qualifications at the right level
a criteria for selection?
When you monitor schools for LA purposes,
such as RI schools or serious weaknesses/
special measures schools, how do you
explore whether the AP they use is
appropriate and leads to good outcomes for
pupils? What kind of evidence do you ask for?

Providers
What level of qualifications are you offering? Are you happy that
these are at the right level for the pupils you are providing for?
Are you able to offer a qualification at a higher level for a pupil who
is clearly capable of achieving more?
What kind of information do you give to the
school about the progress that pupils are making?

Alternative provision: findings and recommendations from Ofsted’s three-year survey

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Alternative provision: findings and recommendations from Ofsted’s three-year survey