Commissioned by
Teaching children in Kent who cannot be in school
Commissioned by Kent County Council, and by 15 Kent schools
Commissioned by Kent County Council, and by 15 Kent schools
It is one of the larger counts in the country. Across the whole of England 34,700 children were in the same position, and they are not evenly spread: a county the size of Kent carries a share of them that a small borough never sees.
A child in Kent 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.
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
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 Maidstone, Sittingbourne, Faversham, Aylesford and Margate.
Children out of the classroom still sat a real timetable. Across the term we taught 16 subjects in Kent, led by the core three.
Schools choose the provision that fits the child. These are the four in use across the authority, and how many schools use each.
A full-time online school place for a child who cannot attend any physical setting.
Curriculum-matched teaching that keeps a child on their own school's syllabus while they are out of the room.
One-to-one teaching and small groups of up to six, built around SEND and ESOL need, at the pace the child can take.
Targeted teaching aimed squarely at exams and attainment.
Kent County Council already commissions places from Purple Ruler directly, and did so 576 times last term. Alongside it, 15 Kent schools hold their own arrangements 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.
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
Every figure here is drawn from the same record as the full Kent 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. 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.
23,412 (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. Kent County 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.