‘Serious safeguarding issue’ as Ofsted offer warning on missing pupils

The issue emerged as inspectors made follow-up visits after the so-called Trojan Horse inquiries, with Wilshaw commenting that it was unclear where some pupils had gone next. From roughly 1,000 students who moved from schools during the latest monitoring period, Ofsted says that in nearly 40 per cent of cases it is unclear where pupils went next.

The Ofsted chief had warned there was a lack of robustness in identifying why pupils had been taken off school registers or their next destination - making it difficult to know if they could be at risk from the threat of ’extremist ideologies'.

Wilshaw said there were generic descriptions, such as ‘moved abroad’ or ‘gone to live with grandparents’ - or in one case ‘gone back to Libya’. He also suggested that some of these pupils will have left mainstream state schools and become pupils in unregistered schools.

Wilshaw said: ”We cannot be sure that some of the children whose destinations are unknown are not being exposed to harm, exploitation or the influence of extremist ideologies."

The Department for Education said it would take ‘immediate steps’ with a spokesman saying: “The safety of young people in our schools is paramount and we will be taking immediate steps to strengthen our guidance to schools on safeguarding and to amend the current regulations about the information schools collect when a pupil is taken off the register.”

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