Source: Ofsted published on this website Tuesday 24 June 2025 by Jill Powell
As part of a review of how Ofsted produce statistics, we plan to publish short commentaries that explore different aspects of our published data on unregistered schools investigations.
This commentary discusses the findings from Ofsted’s work investigating suspected unregistered schools since 2016.
The statistics show the latest published data as at 31 March 2025 from our Unregistered schools management information - GOV.UK.
It is a criminal offence to run an independent school in England that is not registered with the Department for Education (DfE).[footnote 1] Children attending unregistered schools are at risk because there is no formal external oversight of safeguarding, health and safety, or the quality of education. In January 2016, we set up an unregistered schools team, funded by the DfE, to investigate settings that are suspected of operating as unregistered schools.
