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Giving this another plug. Ofsted is questioned over why the removal of pupils' from a school roll is described as off-rolling in one school inspection report but not in another. https://www.tes.com/news/exclusive-ofsted-challenged-rolling-consistency
Ofsted defines off-rolling as "removing a pupil from the school roll without a formal, permanent exclusion or by encouraging a parent to remove their child from the school roll, when it is primarily in the interests of the school rather than in the best interests of the pupil."
In at least four of inspection reports where Ofsted has found off-rolling this has involved a school taking pupils who were attending alternative provision off their roll in year 11 and not being able to demonstrate that this was in these pupils' interests.
This was the case at Discovery Academy in Stoke which was found to be off-rolling but was still judged to be good. https://files.api.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50058291 . Our story on that is here: https://www.tes.com/news/exclusive-ofsted-rates-rolling-school-good
It was also the case at Sutton Academy in Merseyside which was rated as requires improvement. https://files.api.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50085530 .
And this has continued under the new inspection framework. Ormiston Denes Academy was rated as inadequate. https://files.api.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50085530 Our story on that is here https://www.tes.com/news/major-mat-disappointed-its-rolling-academy
And last week a school which removed pupils from its roll in this way in Birmingham was found to have off-rolled and downgraded from outstanding to requires improvement. https://files.api.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50124267 Story here: https://www.tes.com/news/ofsted-downgrades-outstanding-secondary-rolling
But now there are questions about another report published last week which also found a school had removed some pupils from their roll in year 11 and could not show how this was in pupils’ best interests. However Ofsted's report did not conclude that this was off-rolling.
The report into the East Point Academy run by Inspiration Trust raises questions about why pupils who attended alternative provision were sometimes removed from the school roll in Year 11 but doesn't say the school was off-rolling. https://files.api.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50124161
The report says this practice happened until the summer of 2019 but has now stopped. Inspiration Trust has said Ofsted "made explicitly clear that there is no evidence of off-rolling." Our story on the East Point Academy report is here. https://www.tes.com/news/rolling-report-inspiration-trust-raises-concerns
Ofsted has been questioned on social media by @SEND_Action about the reason for the different findings between the Holte School report and the East Point one. I think its definitely an important question and one which Ofsted hasn't answered yet.
