An unregistered school is any setting which is independent of the local authority control and meets the criteria for registering as a school, but has not done so.
The government considers an institution to be a school if it provides full-time education to either:
- 5 or more pupils of compulsory school age
- at least one pupil who has an education health care (EHC) plan or a statement of special educational needs, or who is looked after by a local authority
Opening and running an unregistered school is a criminal offence. It puts children at risk of harm, denies them a suitable education and limits their life chances.
Many of these establishments operate according to the tenets of fundamentalist religion and the curriculum is mostly or wholly religious in nature. Proprietors of such 'schools' choose not to register so they can avoid oversight from the DfE, and hence avoid regulations that may conflict with their religious teachings.
All children should be entitled to a safe and suitable education that allows them to reach their potential and live a fulfilled life, regardless of their background. We therefore campaign to end unregistered schools where religious indoctrination takes priority over children's welfare and education.
Because they lack oversight, unregistered schools fail to conform with school standards, particularly in the areas of safety, health, suitability of staff and quality of education.
Children are often systematically undereducated in secular studies, including English language, leaving them at risk and woefully unprepared for the outside world. This makes them fully dependent on the insular religious community they were born into. They are trapped without a future beyond the narrow confines of the community.
There have been multiple reports of corporal punishment being used in unregistered settings, in addition to extremely poor safeguarding and hygiene standards, sometimes putting children's lives at risk.
You can watch a former pupil from an unregistered faith school tell his story at our Secularism 2019 conference here.
It is perhaps impossible to know for sure how many unregistered schools there are, because by their very nature they are not recorded anywhere. Many are aware that they are breaking the law and operate in secret.
In 2019, Ofsted estimated as many as 6,000 children were being educated in unregistered settings. Around a fifth (21%) are places of religious instruction.
Over 100 unregistered religious schools were investigated in England between January 2016 and August 2019. To date there have only been five successful prosecutions for running unregistered schools.
The lack of a mandatory register for children not in school creates an ideal environment for unregistered schools to flourish. Ofsted estimates that thousands of children being 'home educated' are in fact attending these illegal schools.
In October 2021 there were an estimated 81,200 registered home educated children in England. But there is no way to know an accurate figure for the number of children who are not attending any school. This is because there is no mandatory register for children not in school, making it nearly impossible for local authorities to know how many children do not attend a legally registered school.
If a child is already in formal education at a school, their parents must inform the school if they plan to withdraw them. The school must also inform the local authority. But if the child has never been in formal education, the parent is not required to contact the local authority.
Registration of children not in school would enable the government to detect and close unregistered schools.
Additionally, children who are not registered with the local authority are particularly vulnerable to mistreatment. Some children are withdrawn from school by parents who belong to fundamentalist religions and wish to shield their children from knowledge that conflicts with their religion. According to a 2018 Metropolitan Police study, half of 70 known extremists in London removed their children from state schools to educate them at home.
In extreme cases, home education may be used as a pretext to conceal abuse. In one of the worse examples of child abuse on record in the UK, eight year old Victoria Climbié was murdered in 2000 by her guardians after years of sustained cruelty. The abuse went on for so long partly because Victoria never attended a school in the UK.
A register for children not in school would help protect the most vulnerable from abuse or neglect.
Thanks to consistent lobbying from child rights campaigners including ourselves, the government has said "committed to a registration system for Children Not in School (CNIS)."
The move is also strongly supported by most local authorities and children's charities which responded to the government's 2019 consultation on the issue.
We are concerned that the government's flagship Schools Bill was shelved in 2022 following protests from fundamentalist religious leaders. This bill featured measures to crack down on unregistered schools, including a register for children not in school.
Leaders of fundamentalist, insular religious communities oppose attempts to regulate home education and unregistered 'schools' because regulation threatens their power and authority. Regulation would ensure children in such communities receive a well-rounded, secular education – which would enable them to leave their community if they wish. This is what religious leaders desperately want to avoid. But the freedom to practise a religion does not give groups the right to deprive children of their right to a decent education
Some home educating parents and guardians are also opposed to registration because they believe it undermines their privacy. While the NSS supports the right of parents to home educate, concerns about privacy should not undermine the best interests of children.A register of all children not in school is the best way to ensure their basic welfare and educational needs are met.
An out-of-school setting, sometimes referred to as OOSS, is a group, club, or provider offering activity opportunities for children and people, where children attend without their parents' or carers' supervision.
These are not Ofsted registered organisations and they are not required to be registered by law, provided they do not meet the definition of a 'school' (for example, they do not provide full-time education).
Examples include tuition or learning centres, extracurricular clubs or settings, uniformed youth organisations, supplementary schools, private language schools and religious settings that offer education following their faith.
Many settings provide excellent services and enrich the lives of children, families, and communities. Nonetheless, a small minority are in fact unregistered faith schools operating illegally, and others may have poor safeguarding that leaves children vulnerable to abuse.
The NSS first raised concerns about supplementary schools with the government in 2011 when research showed over 400 allegations of physical abuse (including 30 of sexual abuse) had been made at madrassas in the preceding three years – figures that the then chief crown prosecutor for the north-west of England said represented "a significant underestimate"
We support measures to prohibit corporal punishment in any OOSS and to introduce mandatory reporting for reasonable suspicions of child abuse.
Many religious groups have lobbied against these proposals by claiming that measures would lead to intrusive regulation of Sunday schools and similar religious activities. But there must be regulations to avoid children from being supervised by individuals who may be harmful and dangerous to them.
Unregistered schools are illegal. If you think you know of a possible unregistered school, please contact Ofsted at unregisteredschoolreferrals@ofsted.gov.uk. There's more information from Ofsted here.
If you have concerns about safeguarding in a particular setting, please also contact the local authority or call the NSPCC helpline on 0808 800 5000. To find the relevant local authority, use the Find your local council service and enter the postcode of the setting.
If a child is in immediate danger of harm, please call the police on 999.
