Purple Ruler
Schools in the area ofLondon Borough of Redbridge

Teaching children in Redbridge who cannot be in school

Arranged by schools in Redbridge

In Redbridge

Missing education is more than twice as common in Redbridge as it is across England

510 children were on no school's roll and not being educated anywhere else when schools last counted. That is 1% of pupils here against 0.4% across the country, so this is not the national problem arriving in Redbridge at the usual size.

A child in Redbridge who needs an education, health and care plan waits beyond the twenty weeks the law allows more often than not: 28% 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

311lessons deliveredSessions that ran and were completed. Cancelled and flagged sessions are excluded.
3schools with lessons running this termOut of 3 Redbridge schools engaged with Purple Ruler.
55separate days of teachingProvision ran across the term, not in a single block.
8school placements to dateEvery place taken up at a school in Redbridge across the whole of our work there.
347lessons in Redbridge 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 Redbridge 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 Ilford and Dagenham.

Beacon Business Innovation Hub logo
Beacon Business Innovation Hub
Beal High School logo
Beal High School
Mayfield School logo
Mayfield 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 12 subjects in Redbridge, led by Maths, Functional Skills English and Functional Skills Maths.

Maths
71
Functional Skills English
55
Functional Skills Maths
55
English Combined
44
Science
32
Economics
13
Biology
10
Politics
8
Sociology
8
Chemistry
5
Physics
5
Psychology
5

Provision in use across Redbridge

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.

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.

2schools
The opportunity

What this could be if Redbridge 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 Redbridge 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 Redbridge 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.
London Borough of Redbridge

Talk to us about Redbridge

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 Redbridge 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 Redbridge 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.

4,473 (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. London Borough of Redbridge's mark identifies the authority this report covers. Purple Ruler is not commissioned by London Borough of Redbridge. School marks are the property of their schools.