Child not in education failed manage move.

[LeapingSpice]

I thought i would come on here as a last resort. my daughter has been in school A for all of year 7 and the start of year 8, but she was having a hard time at school after witnessing a traumatic event, bullying, and was travelling far to get to school, and most days she would just refuse school because she hated it.
We applied for a transfer to school b, but because they were full it turned into a manage move. My daughter was at school b from March 5th to June 20th, and she made new friends, got onto the dance team, improved her grades, had 100% attendance, and the school was closer to home.
Unfortunately on June 20th the school phoned me and said she had failed her manage move, because of lateness. My child has a problem with punctuality that i am working on with her, but she struggles with her mental health a lot especially when at school.
She had been late to avoid going to form where some girls had been giving her trouble and she had to sit next to them, but she had been to her pastoral multiple times about this asking to move forms and nothing happened.
I have appealed the failed manage move, contacted local governors, emailed and called both schools multiple times and had no help getting her back into a school, and right now she is not registered at any school. She has taken accountability for where she has went wrong and is willing to put in 100% effort to change that, but she desperately wants to be back in school b. Any advice would be appreciated

You should have paperwork on this that should make clear what the situation was. Often schools communicate this by email - do you have written explanations of emails of what happened?

either way, if she is currently EHE then you need to inform the LA that you want her to go to school and do an application.

@Portofunoi teach at a PRU and all our students who go on managed moves do so on a ‘trial period’. Even when it’s in house with academy trusts. Very few are successful, some students are Back with us the day after they start. Some schools are more cooperative than others.
That’s why we lend uniforms rather than kit them out. We have one pupil who has done five local schools and has the uniform to show for it.

Portofuno, you're quoting from the Dfe guidance on exclusions. This managed move hasn't occurred as a result or instead of a permanent exclusion, so that doesn't apply in this situation. You're absolutely correct that there is no such thing as a trial period when the managed move is part of an agreement to avoid a permanent exclusion or as a result of a rescinded permanent exclusion. The managed move in this instance occurred as a result of a request due to bullying and the student would have remained registered at school A whilst attending School B. After the managed move ceased due to targets not being met, the student should have returned to School A, but mum has deregistered from School A. Therefore the only way to return to any school place is via an In Year Admission application. If there are spaces in the preference school then this space must be given.
Obviously when managed moves are used for different purposes this can make it more difficult for the parent, but there should still have been regular reviews.

i don’t have the paperwork of this, as the school kept it all , i have no emails or anything, i didn’t think i would be in this situation and i didn’t ask for another copy which was clearly a stupid decision. her head of year did say on her first day that she thought it would be a permanent move

You can request the managed move reviews from School A. But, School B aren't under any obligation to allow her back, so you now need to make an application to the local authority to have a place allocated to her.

I would read the Government’s Parents guide as it explains the difference really well. There’s nothing to stop you from applying to the school through admissions, if lateness was the only issue, they wouldn’t have grounds to refuse her on challenging behaviour (if they have spaces).

I know lots of schools and LA’s are doing it, but when the DfE updated the guidance in 2022, they made it clear that trial periods are not allowed on managed moves so they should not be doing it.

I am quoting from DfE Exclusions guidance as this was where the DfE introduced the Managed Move and Off Site Directions guidance which is followed by all maintained schools and academies, I’m not aware of any other DfE guidance around the use of managed moves other than within this guidance? (And the linked parent’s guide) which DfE guidance around the use of managed moves are you referring to?

But it's guidance, it's not followed by all maintained schools and academies as its not statutory. There isn't any statutory law on managed moves as they are simply a school - school agreement which can be cancelled.

@Portofunodo you think that’s likely? When she is already known to the school and has failed a managed move? I would say it would be more realistic to look for school C. I know the school has stated ‘lateness’ but the fact she has asked repeatedly to move form and then not attended also doesn’t look great. Shows a lack of cooperation with the school and issues at both schools. Perhaps a new start is what’s needed?

For the school to refuse her, they would have to apply 3.10 on the schools admissions code. “For the purposes of this Code, behaviour can be described as challenging where it would be unlikely to be responsive to the usual range of interventions to help prevent and address pupil misbehaviour or it is of such severity, frequency, or duration that it is beyond the normal range that schools can tolerate. We would expect this behaviour to significantly interfere with the pupil’s/other pupils’ education or jeopardise the right of staff and pupils to a safe and orderly environment.”

unless there are other issues that the OP hasn’t shared, it’s unlikely the school would be able to demonstrate this, so there shouldn’t be grounds for refusal. Whether this is the right decision would be the OP’s to decide, but the other alternative would be a 3rd school in a year which will also present its own challenges. At least if the school did re-admit, they do know her and the challenges she faces and should be able to put the right support in place to make it successful.

@Portofunoi am not being pedantic but a school could easily argue those points if she has truanted, been late, causing disruption but repeated visits to pastoral team to asked to be moved etc (I am playing devils advocate) and that in six weeks that has not been resolved.

I know mum ballsed up by removing her from school A but she can engage team around finding her another school and hopefully look for other assistance eg ‘early help’ for looking into her mental health issues.

She was never on the roll at school b though….

@Portofuno is absolutely right, most people respoding to this thread are relyig on the position as it was before the guidance on exclusions was changed.

As OP's son was, rightly, put onto th second school's roll, that school was only allowed to remove OP's son from the roll in the specific circumstances set out in the Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006 - and those circumstances definitely do not include lateness unless it was bad enough to justify permanent exclusion. If it was, OP should have received a formal letter saying her child was permanently excluded and giving details of the right to challenge it.

I'd suggest politely pointing that out to the second school and suggesting that the simplest course is to reinstate your child and have a discussion early next term about what all concerned can do to support her to avoid any recurrence of the problem.

Clearly she was, given that (a) that is what is required for any pupil attending a school and (b) that is what OP was told.

As the child was on the school roll, the situation has moved beyond guidance and the statutory requirements around school registration and exclusion govern what should happen.

Email or go to their surgery. Details all online. Good luck

The OP's child wasn't excluded from School A. The child would have still been on roll at School A. They would only have been put on roll at School B on successful completion of the managed move. I deal with managed move paperwork daily, there isn't any guidance to cover a normal managed move where there has been no exclusion. The child would have been expected to return to School A but parent has deregistered them, therefore will need to apply for a school place.
Should School B try to use 3.10, then the application would be referred to the fair access protocol.
Yes, the guidance changed extensively but it applies to exclusions and suspensions and the use of managed moves and DOS placements within that specific criteria, not where 2 schools have agreed to move a child between the 2 schools to see if its a better situation.
Early Help will only get involved with parental consent to a referral and they can't resolve an admissions issue.

@Ratafiain my area kid would never have been school B’s roll until trial period was completed satisfactorily then they would. They should have returned to school A.

and I recommended early help as a ways and means to engage with regard to mental health and camhs.

The guidance is clear that a managed move should always be a permanent one. If it is intended to be temporary, it should be via an offsite direction, in which event the child should be dual registered on both school rolls and the first school has to be very careful to follow al the relevant protocols. It's necessary for the child to be on the second school's roll for a number of reasons relating to funding, insurance, safeguarding and the like. There is no separate species of managed move as you suggest.

If you have not been following the guidance in dealing with managed moves, you need to rectify that as a matter of urgency.

The law doesn't vary according to what area you live in.

In order to avoid confusion on this particular thread, as OP made the decision to deregister, the only way for OP to regain a school place would be via an In Year Admission application.

Ratafia, the child would not have been on roll at School B in my area either. As you've said, it's guidance, not law. There's nothing to be rectified. Statutory law is worded very differently (the wording for permanent exclusions for example include what 'must' be done rather than what 'should' be done) I've seen many different examples where local authorities and schools do the 'managed move' process totally differently (some local authorities refer to managed moves as the process of moving schools when a child is at risk of permanent exclusion, where another uses it to mean a voluntary agreement between 2 schools and parent to enable a change of school for bullying, social reasons etc) Local Authorities definitely do these things differently.

It'd nit going to work out at either school OP. You need to try somewhere else what exactly are these girls saying?

@Ratafia it’s not the law though that’s the point. It’s guidance that’s not followed exactly like that where I live.