Purple Ruler
Schools in the area ofCambridgeshire County Council

Teaching children in Cambridgeshire who cannot be in school

Arranged by schools in Cambridgeshire

In Cambridgeshire

A plan in Cambridgeshire takes longer than the law allows

Separately, 510 children in Cambridgeshire were on no school's roll and not being educated anywhere else when schools last counted, out of 34,700 across England.

7% of new education, health and care plans were issued inside the statutory twenty weeks in 2025, against 46% across England. A child waiting on one is waiting without a timetable.

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

106lessons deliveredSessions that ran and were completed. Cancelled and flagged sessions are excluded.
1school with lessons running this termOut of 3 Cambridgeshire schools engaged with Purple Ruler.
53separate days of teachingProvision ran across the term, not in a single block.
10school placements to dateEvery place taken up at a school in Cambridgeshire across the whole of our work there.
1,187lessons in Cambridgeshire in totalEverything Purple Ruler has taught in the authority since the work began, of which this term is the most recent part.
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. Every place counted here was arranged by a school, so attendance and progress for those children are reported to the school that arranged the place rather than on this page.
Where we work

3 Cambridgeshire schools already work with us

These are the schools in the authority that have brought Purple Ruler in for at least one child. Individual referral numbers are each school's own business, so they are not published here. They are in Cambridge and St. Neots.

Cambridge Academy for Science and Technology logo
Cambridge Academy for Science and Technology
Riverside Meadows Academy logo
Riverside Meadows Academy
The Centre School logo
The Centre 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 4 subjects in Cambridgeshire, led by the core three.

English Combined
32
Maths
32
Biology
21
PSHE
21

Provision in use across Cambridgeshire

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

Category B

Blueprint

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

3schools
Category C

Compass

One-to-one teaching and small groups of up to six, built around SEND and ESOL need, at the pace the child can take.

1school
Category D

Distinction

Targeted teaching aimed squarely at exams and attainment.

1school
The opportunity

What this could be if Cambridgeshire ran it as one thing

3 separate arrangements, or one route in.

Every one of these schools found us on their own. That works, but it means Cambridgeshire is buying the same provision 3 times over, with no single view of which children are in it. An authority-level arrangement changes that.

  • A single route into provision for any Cambridgeshire school, instead of each school negotiating alone.
  • Pooled capacity, so a place is available the week a child needs it rather than the term after.
  • One reporting line back to the authority, covering every child placed through it.
  • Pay for what runs. No minimum, no empty seats held open.
Cambridgeshire County Council

Talk to us about Cambridgeshire

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 Cambridgeshire 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 Cambridgeshire 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.

7,494 (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, which are held by the schools.

Marks and attribution. Cambridgeshire County Council's mark identifies the authority this report covers. Purple Ruler is not commissioned by Cambridgeshire County Council. School marks are the property of their schools.