This report explores ‘unexplained school transfers’ for pupils in secondary school, as well as transfers agreed between headteachers, parents and pupils known as ‘managed moves’ and the local protocols which govern them. It builds on existing EPI work, in which we investigated ‘unexplained exits’ from schools and from the school system, which do not appear to be driven by family decisions or circumstances.
For the data analysis in this report, we use administrative data covering all pupils in England to identify school-to-school moves which do not appear to be driven by family decisions or circumstances including:
▪ a house or area move.
▪ a change in posting for military families.
▪ a social care placement change.
▪ a Gypsy/Roma/Traveller (GRT) community move.
▪ a move into a special school.
We call these ‘unexplained school transfers’ as the data does not contain explicit reasons for the moves. We also use data collected from local authorities on the number of managed moves – or transfers agreed between headteachers, parents and pupils for the pupil to move to a new school – occurring across secondary schools in England.
Through the first analysis, we are capturing schoolto-school moves which may not be classified by schools or LAs as ‘managed moves’, while in the second, we are capturing information on only some managed moves, as not all LAs hold the data from schools. Neither approach yields a complete picture but, in the absence of government data, together they provide insight into the number of managed moves occurring across the country.
