Nearly a quarter of teachers have experienced their schools “off-rolling” pupils, Ofsted survey finds

Nearly a quarter of teachers have experienced children being “off-rolled” –taken off the institution’s books in order to boost its results –a significant new survey by Ofsted reveals today.

In findings which appear to challenge government claims that the phenomenon is happening “on a small scale”, some 24 per cent of staff completing a representative online poll said they had known it happen in schools they were working in.

Of these 15 per cent said it had happened in a former school of theirs and eight per cent in their current school, though in both cases they had not taken part in it themselves.

In addition, some one per cent – roughly 10 teachers in the survey of just over 1,000 – said they had been involved in off-rolling in their current school themselves.

Some two thirds of teachers with experience of off-rolling were of the view that its incidence had increased in the past five years.