This release provides data collected via the ‘School placements for children
from outside of the UK’ survey from local authorities in
England.
It provides data on the number of children from outside of the UK
who have applied for a school place split by the following
countries of origin:
- Afghanistan (arrivals via Afghanistan Relocation and
Assistance Policy or Afghanistan Citizens Resettlement Scheme,
and British Nationals)
- Ukraine (arrivals via the Family Scheme or Homes for Ukraine)
- Hong Kong (arrivals via the Hong Kong British Nationals
(Overseas) welcome programme)
The data relates to applications and offers made for the current
2021-22 academic year, with the latest release covering the
period 1 September 2021 to 27 May 2022. Data is also included on
how many offers have been made within 15 days. For children
waiting for an offer, local authorities and schools will be
working on the process of finding a suitable place within 15
school days. These will be at different stages in the process
depending on the date of new arrivals.
Each resettlement scheme has been active for different lengths of
time. Families from Hong Kong are likely to have entered the
country from January 2021, those from Afghanistan from August
2021 and those from Ukraine from March 2022. We would, therefore,
for example, expect the proportion of applications that have
received offers to be higher for families from Afghanistan than
those from Ukraine.
There are several reasons why a family with school age children
may not have made an application immediately. For example:
- They may have recently arrived and not yet applied for a
place;
- They may be undertaking remote learning of their country’s
own curriculum;
- Some children may have applied for Further Education;
- The Ukrainian compulsory school age starts at 7 and so some
families may be unaware that compulsory school age starts at 5 in
the UK;
- The Ukrainian school year ends on 1 June, some families may
be unaware the UK school year has not yet ended.
This data has been collected and analysed quickly to inform the
Department for Education's response to the resettlement of
families from Afghanistan, Hong Kong and Ukraine. The DfE
recognises the operational importance of publishing this data in
a timely manner and so is publishing this it as
management information.
The data is collected from local authorities on a voluntary
basis. In the latest return, the response rate was 77%.
Imputations to adjust for non-response have been made to produce
national and regional estimates. All local authority data is as
reported, with nil returns reported as an ‘x’. For further
information see ‘Background’ and ‘Methodology’.
