Education Other Than at A School/College (EOTAS)

Since the COVID-19 pandemic there has been a noticeable increase in the number of young people needing support with their mental health, anxiety, panic attacks, loss of motivation and hope for the future. This often escalates to difficulties with them being able to attend school. There are consequences for young people and their parents if they do not attend school and parents do need to be very proactive to work with schools in the early stages to make sure that support is sought.

Mental Health advice following the pandemic was for an increase in provision to consider wellbeing and to make this a priority in schools, but in reality, Government guidance on children attending school has become more hardline. This has resulted in schools dealing with non-attendance down a formal attendance/prosecution of parents route, rather than support for addressing the underlying cause of the issue. That, in many ways, is the easy route for them yet leaves families with the unenviable task of navigating a complex system to receive any educational support and an even harder job getting support for their children’s mental health needs, whilst also dealing with the threat of criminal proceedings. Support available for families in these circumstances ranges from the inconsistent to the nonexistent and accessing any of it is fraught with difficulty.

Before prosecuting parents, local authorities should be considering all other options to try and support young people to return to education. It may be possible to arrange transition back into school plans and enhanced support to help with that, but in many cases, young people are simply unable to reengage with school based learning.

If you are being threatened with school attendance proceedings (which are criminal proceedings dealt with in a Magistrates court) there are a number of options and taking advice as to what will be best to try and avoid that process is crucial.

Engaging with local authorities to meet your young person’s individualised needs is important. They may be required to go through a statutory assessment route to identify their needs and provision to meet those needs and to arrange for an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP). If an EHCP is to be put in place, then that should mean that nonattendance proceedings should be withdrawn rather than prosecuted. If following that process it would be inappropriate for a young person to attend school then consideration will need to be given to an EOTAS package of support to be written into the EHCP.

Writing an EHCP for an EOTAS package is not straightforward as it requires every detail of the quantified support to be properly specified otherwise the package may be very difficult to enforce.

There is a lot of misinformation about EOTAS from schools and local authorities such as young people only being entitled to limited tuition hours or support needing to be delivered only through school outreach services. There seems to be little focus on a young person’s individualised needs and packages that focus on all the requirements of a rounded suitable education such as socialisation, physical activity, therapy support and community learning.

It is often left to parents to devise a suitable plan for educational support and parents need to think creatively about what will meet all needs. For example, some young people are unable to leave their home and will require support delivered online but for others outdoor learning such as Forest Schools or equine therapy could be required. Delivery of therapy (SLT/ and OT and physio) often psychology support is required, but local authorities often will not engage in supporting delivery of this provision.

Each package is highly individual but we can advise on how to adapt to your young person and how to create a plan that is properly enforceable.

We can assist with early advice on strategies to work with school and authorities to build provision plans and advice on securing enhanced provision if EOTAS is envisaged to be a longer term solution.