Alternative Education Provision Accreditation

Nottingham City Council has an accredited education provider directory; accredited providers will be commissioned, by Nottingham City Schools/Academies and Local Authority statutory services, to deliver alternative education provision for vulnerable children and young people across Nottingham City, including those who have been permanently excluded from school or who are without a school place. The accreditation will operate across Nottingham City and the surrounding areas, where applicable.

Nottingham City Council is seeking to commission alternative education for those children and young people for whom they have statutory responsibility, who are without a school place, or where a school or academy wishes to provide an appropriate individualised education package. Nottingham City Council has commissioned alternative education provision via various routes in the past and are seeking to ensure a higher degree of accountability, ensuring consistent, transparent processes and to support collaborative working across all schools, academies and alternative education provisions.

This will in turn support strong operational partnerships with and between providers to improve outcomes for young people; we are looking for alternative education provision for Key Stages 2, 3 and 4 and strong links to post 16. Advice from the Department for Education (DfE), entitled “Registration of Independent Schools” published in August 2019, stipulates that any provision (as defined by section 4 of the Education Act 1996) would need to be registered as an independent school if it is providing: • full time education for five or more learners of compulsory school age • or where one or more such learners have an EHC plan or statement of special educational needs • or where one or more learner is “looked after” by the Local Authority.

It is acknowledged that, as a consequence of this DfE guidance, there may be some providers who are originally categorised as alternative providers of education, but who will ultimately need to become registered as independent schools. Where a provider meets the threshold for independent school registration, the provider must notify the local authority that this threshold has been reached. No further alternative provision placements should be accepted.