Commissioned by
Teaching children in Bedford who cannot be in school
Commissioned by Bedford Borough Council
Commissioned by Bedford Borough Council
Not on any school's roll, and not being educated anywhere else. Across England the same count reached 34,700. That is 0.3% of pupils in Bedford, against 0.4% across the country.
A child in Bedford who needs an education, health and care plan receives it inside the twenty weeks the law allows in most cases: 94% of new plans were issued in time in 2025, against 46% across England.
When a child cannot attend school, the obligation to keep educating them does not pause. It moves to the local authority. In practice the child is still on a school roll, still known to a head of year, and still waiting for someone to arrange something.
Where a child of compulsory school age would not otherwise receive suitable education, the local authority must arrange it.
Section 19, Education Act 1996
No Bedford school holds its own arrangement with us. Every lesson on this page was bought by the council in its own name, for a child the authority placed directly. One referral route, one invoice, one reporting line.
It also sets what we can honestly count. A child placed by the authority has no school record with us, so the number of children behind these lessons is the council's to state and not ours. We count what we taught, which is 120 lessons across 40 separate days.
This is our first term with Bedford Borough Council. Everything above is what the arrangement has done so far, rather than a sample of something longer running.
Children out of the classroom still sat a real timetable. Across the term we taught 3 subjects in Bedford, led by the core three.
Bedford Borough Council already commissions places from Purple Ruler directly, and did so 120 times last term. No Bedford school holds its own arrangement with us, so the council is the only route into this provision in the authority. That is what makes it straightforward to widen: the contract, the safeguarding and the reporting line are all already in place and have run for a term. What changes is how many children can reach them.
We can walk through this term's delivery, how the referral route has worked in practice, and what widening the arrangement would look like.
Book a 30-minute conversation at purpleruler.com/book · hello@purpleruler.com
Every figure here is drawn from the same record as the full Bedford page, which also carries what the children said, what the record shows lesson by lesson, the safeguarding and quality mechanisms, and the route from referral to first lesson.
The photograph. Illustrative, from our own library. It is not a photograph of a child we teach, and no child on this page is pictured.
Our figures. Lesson counts are taken from Purple Ruler's own delivery records for the term stated, counting only sessions that ran and were completed. Cancelled and flagged sessions are excluded. Places here were commissioned by the authority rather than by its schools, so no school or placement count is reported: a child placed centrally has no school record with us.
Department for Education, Children missing education, Autumn term 2025/26, published 2026-01-15.
Department for Education, Education, health and care plans, calendar year 2025, published 2026-09-17.
3,127 (2024/25): Department for Education, Pupil absence in schools in England, released 26 March 2026.
This page reports delivery only. It makes no claim about attendance rates or examination outcomes.
Marks and attribution. Bedford Borough Council commissions provision from Purple Ruler directly. Its mark identifies the authority this report covers. The report is ours and is not published on the council's behalf. School marks are the property of their schools.