The White Horse Federation: why one trust stopped buying teaching one child at a time
Commissioned by The White Horse Federation
Commissioned by The White Horse Federation
Before the pandemic, in 2017/18, 53,699 pupils in England missed half or more of their school sessions. By 2024/25 it was 176,361, more than three times as many, and 9,906 were permanently excluded in the same year. Behind both figures are students for whom school has become too hard to face, and the answer has usually grown school by school: each school finds its own provision for each child who cannot be in lessons.
That is where The White Horse Federation started, with many students learning online, most of them in Year 11, each place arranged on its own. Tim James, the trust’s SEND and Inclusion Lead: “When you pulled all that data together, it wasn’t necessarily cost-effective … and it certainly wasn’t having the impact, it was just seen as a bit of an add-on.”
So the trust brought them together: one inclusion space, one trust-wide timetable taught live in classes of up to six, separate groups by year, and a bridge back for students experiencing emotionally based school avoidance, the term schools use for students too anxious to attend. “This way, we have far more control over the systems, but also with the fact that you can have a class of six makes it so much more beneficial cost-wise.” The trust estimates the shared model is 50 to 60% more cost-effective than buying provision separately.
What it bought, above all, is sight of every student: “We know where they are, we know they’re accessing learning, we know it’s high quality.” Students who had not been inside a school building for a long time are attending sessions again, and some have gone back into mainstream lessons.
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
Across The White Horse Federation last term, the thing that got arranged was Purple Ruler, commissioned by The White Horse Federation directly rather than school by school. This page sets out exactly what that amounted to over one term.
Between 5 January 2026 and 31 March 2026, this is what Purple Ruler taught for children in The White Horse Federation’s schools, every lesson of it commissioned by The White Horse Federation directly. Every figure counts only sessions that actually ran.
No school in The White Horse Federation holds its own arrangement with us. Every lesson on this page was bought by the trust in its own name, for a child the trust placed directly. One referral route, one invoice, one reporting line.
It also sets what we can honestly count. A child placed by the trust has no school record with us, so the number of children behind these lessons is the trust's to state and not ours. We count what we taught, which is 690 lessons across 55 separate days.
Children out of the classroom still sat a real timetable. Across the term we taught 3 subjects across The White Horse Federation, led by the core three.
Sixty seconds on the provision behind these lessons.
Used for: EBSA, behaviour, medical needs, and pupils awaiting placement.
Your own online provision, running to your timetable and your schemes of work, taught live in groups of up to six. It is yours, not a place we sell seats in.
The figures in these four boxes describe the provision across all our work, not this trust. Every other number on this page is this trust’s own.
After a lesson we ask the child what they thought of it. This is every answer we have so far, and it is a small number: 23 answers from 9 maths groups in Purple Ruler Academy between 20 July and 19 August 2026. They are not this trust's children. We publish it because it is the only thing on this page said by a child rather than about one.
Purple Ruler, student feedback survey, 20 July to 19 August 2026. Counts rather than percentages, because a percentage off twenty-two answers reads like a survey of thousands. Two questions are left out on purpose: whether the child had a technical problem, and whether they had anything to report, which is a safeguarding route rather than a view of the teaching.
Claire's daughter stopped being able to attend school at 13. She sat her GCSEs this summer. Claire is in Buckinghamshire rather than here, so this is a borrowed voice like the school account further down, and her daughter is never named.
Claire Ball, parent of a Purple Ruler learner. Three minutes on what changed, in her own words. Captions are on the picture throughout.
Tim James, SEND and Inclusion Lead at The White Horse Federation. This is the trust’s own account of the provision on this page.
The trust had many students learning online, most of them in Year 11, each place arranged on its own. When it put the figures together, that was neither cost-effective nor having the impact it should. It had become an add-on.
So it brought them into one class of up to six that the trust oversees itself, joined from inside a school building wherever a child can manage it, and added groups as a bridge back for children whose anxiety keeps them out of school. In Tim James’s words: “We know where they are, we know they’re accessing learning, we know it’s high quality.”
Read the accountTim James, The White Horse Federation. Two and a half minutes on why the trust brought its separate placements into one class, and what that changed. Captions are on the picture throughout.
It was more cost-effective for us to go through Purple Ruler.
Bal GillLondon Borough of Barking and Dagenham
Bal Gill, London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. The full interview, five minutes, on why the borough moved its home tuition to us. Captions are on the picture throughout.
Bal Gill commissions for London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, not for The White Horse Federation. It is quoted here because it is the one commissioner voice we hold that is signed off for publication, and a commissioner's own words are worth more than ours even when they are somebody else's.
Provision that discharges a statutory duty has to stand up to scrutiny. These are the mechanisms behind every lesson counted on this page.
Every lesson is taught by an experienced teacher. This is school provision delivered online, not supplementary tutoring.
Lessons are recorded, staff are DBS checked, and safeguarding follows KCSIE. A designated lead is reachable throughout the school day, and when a child misses a lesson somebody rings home the same day.
Sessions are observed and graded against a rubric, so quality is measured continuously rather than reported after the fact.
Each placement produces an attendance and progress record the school and the authority can use as evidence that the duty is being met.
The White Horse Federation already commissions places from Purple Ruler directly, and did so 690 times last term. No school in The White Horse Federation holds its own arrangement with us, so the trust is the only route into this provision across the trust. That is what makes it straightforward to widen: the contract, the safeguarding and the reporting line are all already in place and are already running. What changes is how many children can reach them.
Every page like this one proves what was delivered and then stops. This is the part a commissioner actually asks about.
The White Horse Federation commissions the places itself, so a referral goes straight to us rather than through a school: one route in, one invoice, one reporting line.
Which children you are trying to place, which of the four provisions fits each of them, and what it would cost. Thirty minutes is enough, and the calendar below shows real times in your own timezone.
Each placement produces an attendance and progress record the school and the authority can both use as evidence, and a designated safeguarding lead reachable through the school day.
Nothing about attendance or exam results. Those belong to whoever arranged the place, and the figures here count lessons we delivered.
Every authority on this list has its own page built the same way, from its own records, with the same refusals about what may and may not be claimed. The nearest to you are Swindon, Bath and North East Somerset and Hampshire. Reading one of them is the quickest way to judge whether what you have read here is a pattern or a coincidence.
SwindonSee what we delivered
Bath and North East SomersetSee what we delivered
HampshireSee what we deliveredEach has its own page, and all of them are on the index.
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
Take the short version of The White Horse Federation instead. It is this page with the figures, the schools and the subjects kept and the long reading taken out, built for forwarding to somebody who will not read all of this, and it needs nothing from you.
Your contact for The White Horse Federation
Daniel Demarmels
Looks after our work across the south of England, which includes The White Horse Federation.
daniel.demarmels@purpleruler.com · put time straight in their diary
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 trust rather than by its schools, so no school or placement count is reported: a child placed centrally has no school record with us.
Severe absence, 2017/18 and 2024/25: Department for Education, Pupil absence in schools in England, released 26 March 2026.
Permanent exclusions, 2024/25: Department for Education, Suspensions and permanent exclusions in England, published 9 July 2026.
Why the trust bought, and what changed: Tim James, The White Horse Federation, in the filmed interview on this page, and the trust’s own published account, purpleruler.com, May 2026.
This page reports delivery only. It makes no claim about attendance rates or examination outcomes.