Brighton and Hove: the short version

In Brighton and Hove

Brighton and Hove has fewer children missing education than most of England

0.1% of pupils here, against 0.4% nationally. The number is small and it is not nothing: 40 children were on no school's roll and not being educated anywhere else when schools last counted, and each of them is one place that has to be found.

A child in Brighton and Hove who needs an education, health and care plan receives it inside the twenty weeks the law allows more often than not: 57% of new plans were issued in time in 2025, against 46% across England.

Why this matters

The duty sits with the authority. The children sit in your schools.

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

The term in numbers

What we delivered, spring term 2026

561lessons deliveredSessions that ran and were completed. Cancelled and flagged sessions are excluded.

1school with lessons running this termOut of 1 Brighton and Hove school engaged with Purple Ruler.

54separate days of teachingProvision ran across the term, not in a single block.

3school placements to dateEvery place taken up at a school in Brighton and Hove across the whole of our work there. Children Brighton and Hove City Council placed directly are counted in the lessons above, not here.

1,462lessons in Brighton and Hove in totalEverything Purple Ruler has taught in the authority since the work began, of which this term is the most recent part.

Where the lessons came from

114bought by schoolsPlaces arranged by 1 school in Brighton and Hove, one child at a time.

447bought by Brighton and Hove City CouncilPlaces the authority commissioned directly, in its own name.

1,348bought by the council since we beganEvery lesson the authority has commissioned in its own name that our authority record holds.

What is counted. A lesson counts once it has run and been completed. Sessions that were cancelled, or flagged for review, are left out, so these are lessons delivered rather than lessons attended. Attendance and progress for the children Brighton and Hove City Council places with us are reported to you separately rather than on this page. Where a school arranged the place, they go to that school.

What we taught

A full curriculum, not a holding pattern

Children out of the classroom still sat a real timetable. Across the term we taught 6 subjects in Brighton and Hove, led by the core three.

English Combined

189

Maths

162

Science

154

Science Combined

English Language

English Literature

Provision in use across Brighton and Hove

Schools choose the provision that fits the child. These are the four in use across the authority, and how many schools use each.

Category A

Academy

A full-time online school place for a child who cannot attend any physical setting.

1school

Category B

Blueprint

Curriculum-matched teaching that keeps a child on their own school's syllabus while they are out of the room.

1school

The opportunity

What this could be if Brighton and Hove widened it

The route already exists. The question is who else uses it.

Brighton and Hove City Council already commissions places from Purple Ruler directly, and did so 447 times last term. Alongside it, 1 Brighton and Hove school holds its own arrangement with us, negotiated separately. The two are not joined up, and neither is the picture of which children are in provision. Widening the central arrangement is a smaller step than starting one.

One arrangement covering every Brighton and Hove school, so a school does not have to negotiate its own.
The provision you already buy, extended to the children who are still waiting on something to be arranged.
One reporting line back to the authority, covering every child placed through it, whoever referred them.
Pay for what runs. No minimum, no empty seats held open.

Talk to us about Brighton and Hove

We can walk through this term's delivery, the schools involved, and what an authority-wide arrangement would look like in practice.

Book a 30-minute conversation at purpleruler.com/book · hello@purpleruler.com

This is the short version

Every figure here is drawn from the same record as the full Brighton and Hove 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.

Read the full Brighton and Hove page

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. Placement and school counts cover all Purple Ruler work in the authority to date.

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.

3,625 (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. Brighton and Hove City 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.

Teaching children in Brighton and Hove who cannot be in school