Lancashire County Council × Purple Ruler — Alternative Provision: The Year in Review & The Year Ahead

RECAP · 01

The year, in Lancashire's own numbers

Every figure is drawn live from Lancashire's course records — the pupils your team placed, the lessons our teachers delivered.

189

Pupils supported

Individual young people taught this year

Teaching groups

Small live groups across the core curriculum

11,900+

Lessons attended

Live, teacher-led lessons your pupils showed up to

602

Subject enrolments

Pupil places across Science, Maths & English

Core subjects, KS2–KS4

A full academic spine, not a holding pattern

£370k+

Invested in pupils

Lancashire's commissioned provision, lifetime

What Lancashire and Purple Ruler built together

Over 2025/26 we stood up a county-wide online alternative provision — the "Blueprint" programme — as one team: small, live, teacher-led groups for pupils who can't be in a mainstream classroom, on one contract, one provider and one safeguarding standard. Your team refers and steers; ours teaches, safeguards and reports back.

It reached 189 pupils across 96 groups in Science, Maths and English, KS2 to GCSE — re-engaged, kept exam-ready, supported back toward school. Not a pilot to evaluate; a proven partnership to scale into a full Academy.

RECAP · 02

A balanced academic core

Lancashire didn't commission babysitting. The provision held an even three-way split across the subjects that matter most for progression and GCSE — every pupil carried a real curriculum.

Science · 201 places 4,107 lessons attended

Maths · 201 places 4,107 lessons attended

English · 198 places 3,701 lessons attended

The near-perfect balance is by design: Blueprint timetables every pupil into the core academic trio, so a placement keeps GCSE pathways open rather than closing them. This year that core ran on its own — the year ahead is where Lancashire's scale lets us grow it into the full, broad curriculum a registered provision is expected to deliver.

"Highly engaged throughout and participated respectfully — a strong understanding of direct proportion, identifying proportional relationships and completing the tables accurately." — Maths teacher, May 2026

RECAP · 03

Where the need was — by year group

The provision flexed across nine year groups, but concentrated exactly where Lancashire's pressure sits hardest: the GCSE years and the Key Stage 3 run-up to them.

Year 10 GCSE

190

Year 9 KS3

126

Year 11 GCSE

120

Year 8 KS3

Year 7 KS3

Years 1–6 Primary / KS2

Enrolments by year group, 2025/26. The GCSE-heavy profile is why the academic-core model matters: these are pupils with exams on the horizon and no classroom to sit in.

THE IMPACT · 04 · 1 of 2

What the year actually changed

For this cohort — anxious, excluded, medically absent, or out of school entirely — the measure of success isn't a single attendance line. It's pupils who re-engaged with learning and kept a real curriculum while they were with us.

382

Active placements carried into 2026

Pupils still learning with Lancashire's provision — a live, continuing service, not a closed project.

★ Ofsted, Oct 2025 — "meets all the standard for online education"

"Staff help pupils to reignite their spark for learning in a calm and nurturing online environment."

Ofsted monitoring report, October 2025

"A significant strength is the support staff provide for pupils with SEND… each pupil receives carefully tailored, individualised teaching."

Ofsted monitoring report, October 2025

"Communication with those who commission places is a strength. Consequently, commissioners feel well-informed."

Ofsted monitoring report, October 2025

Lesson after lesson, Lancashire's pupils answered "yes" when asked if they'd enjoyed the session — the engagement signal that comes before attendance, attainment and everything after.

Purple Ruler pupil feedback, 2025/26

THE IMPACT · 04 · 2 of 2

In their teachers' words — Lancashire pupils this term

Behind the figures, this is what re-engagement looks like up close — taken from Lancashire tutors' own lesson notes over the past term. Different pupils, different starting points, the same direction of travel. Pupils are anonymised; the words are the teachers'.

"Began the lesson feeling a bit upset, but took the time to regulate himself — then participated really well and stayed engaged throughout. His ability to recover from his initial mood and re-engage was great to see."

Maths teacher · April 2026

"Initially scored 0% in the start quiz — but he responded so well to guidance and support that by the end of the lesson he achieved 100%. Excellent progress."

Maths teacher · April 2026

"A pleasure to teach and engaged positively throughout — he improved from 50% to 100% across the lesson, showing excellent progress and real understanding."

Maths teacher · June 2026

"Keeping great pace with the lessons and working comfortably at foundation level — she should be really proud of that. Keep it up, you're doing a great job!"

Maths teacher · April 2026

"Showed improved confidence and a strong consolidation of knowledge — a good grasp of atomic structure and periodicity, and how periods and groups relate to reactivity."

Science teacher · April 2026

"Approaches every activity with maturity and a thoughtful attitude — a growing understanding of the texts, and contributes well in discussion."

English teacher · May 2026

Verbatim extracts from Purple Ruler lesson reports, Lancashire cohort, March–June 2026. Pupils referred to by initials only.

THE YEAR AHEAD · 05

From a proven service to a county-wide Academy

You've already built the hard part — an established, inspected, county-commissioned provision with 189 pupils on roll. The next step isn't to start something new; it's to formalise what works into a single Academy programme that's easier to run and reaches further. The direction is a shared one: a total solution that is highly effective, genuinely low-cost, differentiated to need, and accountable end-to-end.

The 2025/26 model

Pupils added one referral at a time, often outside the standard process
Core academic subjects only — Science, Maths, English
A separate price line and conversation per placement
Attendance and progress tracked by hand, school by school
No single county-level view of the whole cohort

→

The Academy programme, 2026/27

One commissioning route into a block of Academy places your team controls
A fuller offer — broaden the core into the full OEAS curriculum: Humanities, PSHE, Careers, PE & Creative
One predictable weekly price; budget the cohort, not the pupil
Real-time attendance & safeguarding feeding your weekly AP procedures
A live county dashboard of every Lancashire pupil in provision

One front door

Every Lancashire referral flows through your AP team into one Academy arrangement — no more provision arranged off-process.

48-hour starts

A pupil identified Monday can be learning by mid-week, in an existing group — no bespoke set-up each time.

A fuller school day

Build out from the core trio toward a full timetable, with reintegration to mainstream as the explicit goal.

One report, one invoice

Attendance, safeguarding and progress in a single county view; billing consolidated to one predictable line.

THE YEAR AHEAD · 06

One provision for every child the county must educate

A school commissions for the pupils in front of it. Lancashire carries something wider — the Section 19 duty to arrange suitable education for every child of compulsory school age who can't attend a mainstream school, whatever the reason. The Academy programme makes Purple Ruler one fast, consistent, accredited route across all of them, rather than a different provider per cohort.

🏠

Medical needs & EBSA

Children too anxious or unwell to attend — taught live from home, with a re-engagement journey built in.

⛔

Exclusion & suspension

An immediate, full-curriculum placement from day one, so excluded pupils don't lose weeks of learning.

🔎

Children missing education

A rapid route back into structured, registered learning while a school place is found.

🧭

At-risk & managed moves

A stable online provision that holds a pupil's education steady through a transition between schools.

📘

EOTAS & EHCP packages

Education other than at school, and 1:1 SEND-informed delivery built from the child's EHCP.

🎓

NEET & post-16 re-engagement

Re-engagement and qualification routes for 16–19s who have dropped out of education or training.

Section 19 of the Education Act 1996 places the duty to arrange suitable provision on the local authority. Purple Ruler already serves most of these cohorts in Lancashire today; the programme simply makes us a quality-assured route across all of them — the pupil numbers in each category stay yours to hold.

THE YEAR AHEAD · 07 · 1 of 2

A registered provision owes a full curriculum — and Lancashire can have one

A DfE-registered, OEAS-accredited online provision is held to more than three subjects. The DfE's own expectation for a full-time placement is a complete week — English, Maths, Science, PSHE, Careers (CEIAG), Creative & Aesthetic Studies and PE — unless a pupil is on a justified reduced timetable. The year ahead is where Lancashire's scale lets us put that whole offer live, not just the core spine.

📚

The academic core

English, Maths and Science — the GCSE-facing spine that ran all this year, structured squarely around Year 11 exam readiness.

🌍

Humanities at KS4

Geography and History added to the GCSE offer, so a placement keeps the full breadth of qualifications open rather than narrowing the timetable.

🧭

A broader Key Stage 3

KS3 widens beyond the core into a fuller foundation curriculum, keeping younger pupils on the same path as their peers in school.

🎨

The wider school day

PSHE, Careers, PE and Creative Studies — the enrichment that makes provision feel like a school, unlocking as attendance climbs.

🎓

An accessible breadth

An accessible GCSE-style qualification — Citizenship or Health & Social Care — gives real breadth without forcing a GCSE-heavy week the cohort isn't ready for. Each subject pitched at GCSE or Functional-Skills level by readiness.

📋

Compliant by design

Enrolment, statutory hours and subject coverage mapped to DfE expectations and our OEAS accreditation — placed pupils sit with us, not on our roll, exactly as the accreditation requires. The wording your team needs to commission, and to route up the chain, with confidence.

🇬🇧

British values & SMSC

Spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and the active promotion of British values run through PSHE, Careers and the wider curriculum — explicitly signposted for Ofsted, so a placement develops the whole child, not only the grades.

🧪

GCSE or Functional Skills

The offer can split two ways. Alongside the GCSE pathway sits a Functional Skills route at £100 / week — 15 hours a week, 5× English, 5× Maths and 5× PSHE — a realistic, accredited alternative for pupils not yet ready for a full GCSE timetable.

🤝 A shared journey. Lancashire's scale is exactly what makes the full curriculum viable to run live — so commissioning the broader offer doesn't only buy more for your pupils, it broadens the academy already in place. We scope the full curriculum together as attendance and need grow; the Academy core is the spine it builds out from.

THE YEAR AHEAD · 07 · 2 of 2

Year 11s sit their GCSEs — a model we've run before

GCSE readiness only counts if it ends in GCSEs sat. The hard case is the excluded or newly-arrived Year 11 with no school roll, where the question is simply where they sit the papers. We have solved exactly this in another authority, and the same model would run for Lancashire.

A partner school registers them

We work with a local partner school that handles exam registration and adds each pupil to roll for the exams only — Purple Ruler carries the OEAS-accredited GCSE preparation all year.

The LA chooses & funds entries

Around two months out we share the cohort list so your team decides exactly who is entered — a pupil with no engagement need not carry the entry cost — and the authority funds the GCSE entries.

They sit on site, then go home

On exam days pupils come into the partner school through a separate entrance to a set-up that's ready for them, sit their papers on site, and go home. It has worked cleanly before.

Scaled for Lancashire

By geography and numbers that likely means a small network of partner schools or exam centres across the county — a project we'd scope and run with you, not hand you to solve.

🧪 Two ways to certify, whatever the pupil is ready for. Add Functional Skills testing online, or sit full GCSEs at partner schools and exam centres across Lancashire and the North West — so every pupil leaves with the right qualification, wherever they are in the county.

🎓 We've already run the exam rescue — in another authority

This isn't a model on paper. In Enfield we took on 11 late-joining Year 11s with no exam route and placed them into a local exam centre to sit their GCSEs — registration handled, papers sat, all inside the Section 19 duty. The same partnership carries the harder individual cases too: a Year 9 with an EHCP and ME/CFS moved from group teaching to one-to-one as their needs changed, without ever losing provision. And it runs at scale — 308 enrolments and ~2,490 lessons delivered across the authority.

"All discussions have been focused on the child… we remain committed to supporting him under Section 19."

Enfield · on a Section 19 placement

"The provision has been great."

Parent of a Purple Ruler pupil, Enfield

Enfield delivery figures from Purple Ruler records; pupil details anonymised. The same exam-centre route would run for Lancashire's late-arriving and off-roll Year 11s.

THE YEAR AHEAD · 08 · 1 of 2

The Academy price does more than teach

The work your team currently carries by hand — welcoming families, chasing welfare, compiling attendance — comes built into the weekly Academy price. No teaching hour lost to admin, and no separate invoice for any of it.

📞

Family welcome call

Every new pupil's family contacted at onboarding, so the placement starts on a relationship — not a login. The call also captures whether the child is already receiving therapy or support elsewhere, so provision is shaped to need and never duplicated.

🛟

Welfare call at <50%

A welfare call is triggered automatically the moment a pupil's attendance drops below the 50% threshold.

📊

Weekly attendance report

Delivered every week with the outcome of each welfare call logged against the pupil — ready for your case officers.

✉️

Click-to-email parent

One click from the weekly report opens a pre-filled email to the parent — outreach without the copy-paste.

📈

Attendance & termly reports

Individual attendance reporting as standard, plus a termly progress report per pupil — with an extra report on exception only when a pupil is changing setting or returning to a school.

🧩

Therapy by referral

Therapy and enhanced mental-health support available as a clearly-tagged option, added on referral — only where a pupil needs it, and never charged or duplicated where therapy is already in place elsewhere.

Built for your September case-officer model

Attendance dips below 50%→ Automatic welfare call→ Outcome logged→ Weekly thresholded list to the case officer→ Only urgent cases escalate to you

Designed around the model discussed for September — case officers carrying ~50 pupils each, with a clean list of true non-attenders to act on and home visits where they're needed. The provision does the chasing; your team makes the judgement calls.

THE YEAR AHEAD · 08 · 2 of 2

A termly report card for every pupil — straight to your inbox

Each term we email a consolidated progress report for every pupil to your nominated case officers — attendance, attainment, the curriculum covered and what the child is learning, all benchmarked against age-related expectations. No chasing, no separate request. Here is an anonymised sample of exactly what lands in your inbox.

Progress Report — Pupil A

Year 7 · Lancashire alternative provision · Spring term 2026 · anonymised sample

Benchmarked vs Year 7 age-related expectations

43%

Attendance

60 of 139 sessions

35 / 17 / 8

Sessions attended

Maths · Science · English

Working towards

Year 7 expectations

Across all three subjects

Headline. A capable and willing learner whose tutors consistently describe strong engagement and comprehension when settled. Progress this term was limited far more by attendance than by ability — with consistent attendance the existing gaps would close quickly. Currently working towards Year 7 age-related expectations across Maths, Science and English.

Maths · 35 sessions

Covered this term

Fractions & percentages · place value · area & perimeter · data handling · measure & time

A confident mathematician when present — "a great learner with good content comprehension". Secure, fast progress whenever attendance allowed.

Science · 17 sessions

Covered this term

Cells · the human body · forces & pressure · motion & speed · electricity & circuits

Grasps new ideas and engages well; secure on some topics, needing scaffolding and revision on others. Squarely on the Year 7 curriculum.

English · 8 sessions

Covered this term

Clauses & conjunctions · prepositions · punctuation · myths · reading practice

Most affected by attendance. Year 7 grammar covered, with reading fluency flagged as the priority to develop through consistent practice.

What would move the needle. Attendance is the single biggest lever — this pupil learns well in the small online setting, so the focus is joining consistently and reducing in-session distraction. Exactly the kind of clear, actionable read your case officers receive every term.

Illustrative sample, fully anonymised — real reports name the pupil and are sent only to your authorised contacts.

THE YEAR AHEAD · 09 · 1 of 3

Built on one flat Academy core

The Academy core is the spine the county-wide programme is built on — one flat, fully-inclusive weekly rate set for Lancashire. The broader curriculum and the flexible group models flex around it; you budget the core and grow from there.

Recommended spine

Academy

£100 / pupil / week · 15 hrs core

A full, structured online school day across the academic core — English, Maths and Science — built around Year 11 GCSE readiness, with reintegration to mainstream as the goal. The broad, OEAS-accredited curriculum (Humanities, PSHE, Careers, PE & Creative Studies) layers on as attendance and need grow — scoped with you, not bolted on.

≈ £6.67 / pupil / hour · 15 hrs core

Group teaching

Blueprint

£29.17 / hour · per group

Small-group teaching across core subjects on a bespoke timetable, available across all key stages (KS1–KS4) — the same price whether the group is one pupil or six. The most cost-efficient way to hold a cohort.

≈ £4.81 / pupil / hour at a full group

1:1 SEND

Compass

£29.17 / hour · 1:1

One-to-one provision shaped around an EHCP or high-level SEND need, with pastoral and specialist support built in — for the pupils who need it most.

Adapted to the pupil's plan

The efficiency case is plain: a full structured school day with qualified teachers, safeguarding and the operational wraparound built in, from £100 a week — a fraction of typical face-to-face alternative provision, with no separate bill for the admin your team currently carries.

🎁 A transition offer to bring the county across. Moving an established 189-pupil provision onto a single Academy line is a decision, not a default — so for 2026/27 we'd put a transition discount on the table for Lancashire: a reduced Academy rate for the cohort that moves across at the start of the year, recognising the scale, continuity and commitment Lancashire brings to the partnership. ⟨Draft note — Ross to set the exact mechanism & rate: e.g. a reduced introductory weekly rate for the first term, or a percentage off for committing the existing cohort.⟩

THE YEAR AHEAD · 09 · 2 of 3

From a variable bill to a budget you set

The real cost change for 2026/27 isn't the rate — it's the shape. Moving placements onto the flat Academy line turns a bill that moved with group sizes and hours into one predictable, fully-inclusive number you can set before the year starts.

Last year's cost shape

Blueprint billed hourly at £29.17/hr per group — cost per pupil swung with how full each group ran
Hourly and fixed placements landing on different lines
Welcome, welfare and attendance chasing carried as your team's own staff time
£370k+ committed across the relationship — with invoices that bounced between school, inclusion & finance

→

Next year's cost shape

One flat Academy core — £100 per pupil per week, every pupil, every week
Welcome calls, welfare calls, attendance & termly reports included — no extra line
Budget = pupils × £100 × weeks, known on day one
A single consolidated invoice your finance team reconciles in one pass

What it costs per pupil — and what it saves

No cohort totals here — just the per-pupil cost, so the maths holds however many pupils are placed and however long each one stays. Benchmarked against Academy 21, the usual reference point for online alternative provision.

Purple Ruler Academy

£100 / pupil / week

≈ £400 / pupil / month

About £400 per pupil per month in term time — £3,800 across a 38-week school year. 15 live teaching hours every week (English, Maths, Science daily), fully inclusive, at ≈ £6.67 per live hour.

The rate set for Lancashire

Academy 21 · PAYG

£219 / pupil / week

≈ £876 / pupil / month

About £876 per pupil per month — 8 live hours a week, the rest untaught, at ≈ £27.38 per live hour (ex VAT). The standard online-AP list price.

More than double the weekly cost

Academy 21 · Annual

£165 / pupil / week

≈ £660 / pupil / month

About £660 per pupil per month even on the discounted annual plan — still 8 live hours a week at ≈ £20.63 per live hour (ex VAT).

Their cheapest rate still sits well above

💷 The projected saving, per pupil: roughly £65–£119 a week against Academy 21 — about £260–£476 a month, or £2,470–£4,522 a year for every pupil placed — and for more live teaching, not less (15 hours a week against 8). Because it's a per-pupil saving, it scales with however many pupils Lancashire places, and never assumes how long any one child stays.

Per-pupil figures, illustrative. A term-time month is taken as four teaching weeks and the school year as 38 weeks. Academy 21 comparison as set out in our correspondence (figures ex VAT); Lancashire may hold a separate agreement.

THE YEAR AHEAD · 09 · 3 of 3

The flexibility is the real difference — not just the rate

On price alone the gap is already wide. But the bigger difference sits behind the number: the commitment. Academy 21's lower annual figure is a fixed twelve-month block, bought up front. The Lancashire rate carries no lock-in at all — you can stand a placement down on a single week's notice, and it still sits below Academy 21's cheapest committed price. So you only ever pay for the pupils actually learning, you're never holding paid-for places a child has already moved on from, and the cheaper-looking annual rate stops looking close the moment you weigh what it ties you into.

📆

Cancel on a week's notice

No annual contract, no minimum term. Stand any placement down with a week's notice and the cost stops with it — yet the weekly rate still undercuts Academy 21's discounted annual price. You carry no risk for a child who moves, returns to school or changes setting.

⚡

Live within 48 hours

A referral drops straight into an existing, running group within 48 hours — no bespoke build, no setup fee, no waiting on a timetable to be written. Pupils are accessing live teaching almost from the moment your case officer makes the placement.

🎛️

Full oversight, by design

Each case officer gets their own dashboard, filtered to only their assigned pupils, with attendance, welfare-call outcomes and progress visible live — exactly the case-officer model you set out at the review. Nothing happens to a Lancashire pupil that your team can't see.

🧩

Tailored to the child, not a fixed block

The provision adapts to each pupil's attendance and need — core for the lowest attenders, enrichment unlocking as they climb — with staged, bespoke support layered in after an initial engagement period. A more tailored offer than an off-the-shelf block, shaped with you.

📥

Per-child & ad-hoc reports

Reports are produced per pupil — clean to upload into your systems without confidentiality errors — and case officers can pull an ad-hoc report for an incoming child whenever they need one, not only on the weekly cycle.

✅

You decide who's placed

Every placement proceeds only on your authorisation, and you can pause, extend or end any one of them without touching the rest. Full control of the cohort, the spend and the pace — held with Lancashire, not the provider.

🤝 The shape of the offer: cheaper per pupil, cancellable on a week's notice, live within 48 hours, and fully in your sight and your control — a provision tailored around each Lancashire child that your team owns the oversight of, not a fixed block bought a year at a time.

THE YEAR AHEAD · 10

One flat price, a full multi-tiered system of support

The flat Academy core isn't a flat offer. Behind the single price sits a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) that meets each pupil exactly where they are — and grows as they re-engage. Attendance is the dial: the lowest attenders are met with therapy, the academic core settles as they return, and a wider curriculum and more lessons unlock as attendance climbs. Click through the tiers to follow a pupil's journey back toward school.

↓ Attendance is the dial · tap a tier

Therapy Academic core Full curriculum

1 / 3

Tier 3 · Intensive support

Therapy is the way back in

Triggered when attendance is lowest — the pupils furthest from school

For a pupil too far from school for any timetable to land, the first offer is therapeutic, not academic — wellbeing, mentoring and a low-stakes route back into routine. Here, therapy is the provision: the only goal is to rebuild the habit of showing up.

Therapeutic re-entry1:1 mentoringWellbeing & routineLight-touch academics

🎯 Goal: rebuild attendance and trust — the foundation everything else is built on.

＋ £30 / week · optional 1:1 therapy session, by referral

Tier 2 · Targeted support

The academic core settles in

Triggered as attendance settles around 40% and up

Once a pupil is attending, they carry the GCSE-facing academic spine — the same balanced core that ran all this year. For Year 11s it is structured squarely around GCSE readiness and exam access. Therapy continues alongside, by referral.

EnglishMathsScienceY11 GCSE readiness

🎯 Goal: hold a full academic timetable and keep qualifications on track.

£100 / week · the flat Academy core — English, Maths & Science

Tier 1 · Universal offer

A full school day — more lessons, a wider curriculum

Triggered by higher, stable attendance

As attendance climbs, the timetable broadens toward a complete offer — the broad, OEAS-accredited curriculum and the enrichment that makes provision feel like a school, not a stopgap. This is the breadth that paves the way back to mainstream.

HumanitiesPSHECareersPECreative Studies

🎯 Goal: a complete, school-like offer — and a planned return to mainstream.

Full bracket · includes 2 electives + enrichment on top of the core

Build the package — one core, simple add-ons

£100 / wk

The Academy core

English, Maths & Science — the flat base every pupil carries. The full bracket includes 2 electives.

+ £30 / wk

Therapy · 1:1

A weekly one-to-one therapy session, added by referral for the pupils who need it.

+ £20 / wk

Electives · +2 hrs

History, Geography, Business Studies or IT — two further hours of learning a week.

+ £20 / wk

Enrichment · +3 hrs

PSHE, PE and Careers & Guidance — three hours a week of the wider school day.

🧩 Therapy runs across every tier, added by referral — a pupil in the academic core who needs therapeutic support gets it tagged on without dropping their curriculum. Below the bottom threshold, that therapy is the provision until they're ready to climb. One flat price; support that scales to the child.

Thresholds shown are proposed starting points — around 40% settles the academic core, with the wider curriculum layering in as attendance climbs. Final bands to be agreed with Lancashire and tied to your welfare-call trigger and case-officer model.

THE YEAR AHEAD · 11

Not a parking space — every placement aims at a return

An honest alternative provision is judged on whether a child moves back toward school, not on how long it holds them online. We measure every placement against a simple Reintegration Matrix — three readiness signals — so a return is a planned progression, defensible to panels, parents and inspectors.

Engagement

Camera and microphone on, participating, responding in lessons — the first sign a relationship with learning is rebuilding.

Pacing

Keeping up with the curriculum, so a return doesn't mean walking into a gap the pupil can't close.

Emotional & social progress

Behavioural and emotional signals pointing toward readiness for the demands of school life again.

The staged return

Full online — stabilise & rebuild routine→ Cameras / mics on — engagement climbing→ 60% home · 40% school — phased return→ Back in mainstream — online phases out

The matrix helps your team and the school judge when a pupil can begin splitting time between home and school, and eventually phase the online provision out entirely — in line with the government's reintegration expectations. The goal is never to hold a child online; it is to move them back, in stages.

"A positive attitude towards learning, attempting the tasks with confidence and remaining engaged during discussions and activities." — Maths teacher, May 2026

THE YEAR AHEAD · 12 · 1 of 6

A partner to run it — and a place in Lancashire to grow into

Online doesn't have to mean a bedroom, and running the provision doesn't have to fall solely on your team. The model that has scaled this elsewhere is a clean three-way split — the authority commissions, an operating partner wraps around the child, and Purple Ruler teaches — anchored, where it works best, in a supervised physical base.

🏛️

Lancashire County Council

Commissions & holds the duty. Holds the Section 19 duty to educate children who can't attend, sets the standard, and needs one line of sight across every placement.

🤝

An operating partner

Operates & wraps around the child. Referral, placement and pastoral wraparound — sport, mentoring, SEMH and the relational model — plus parent and school liaison on the ground.

📡

Purple Ruler

Delivers the live curriculum. Live, teacher-led lessons across core and broader subjects, groups of ≤6 or 1:1 by need, real-time attendance, half-termly reports and a safeguarding line to our DSL.

📎 One agreement, not per-pupil paperwork. A single joint data-sharing and safeguarding agreement at programme level sets this out once — so a child can start without a fresh contract each time. It is the structure already working in practice elsewhere; for Lancashire it can run with your own team or a local partner holding the wrap while we teach.

And there's a natural local candidate to explore for the physical base — the Vault, in Preston. That's the next slide.

THE YEAR AHEAD · 12 · 2 of 6

The Vault, Preston — Lancashire's own daytime home for the provision

The youth-zone model isn't something Lancashire would have to invent — there's a natural local candidate taking shape in the county. The Vault is OnSide's new Preston Youth Zone, and what follows is an idea we'd like to explore — with the Vault's team and with you — for an online-school-inside-a-real-building, modelled on what is already working elsewhere (the next slides).

💡 An idea to explore · Preston

A £1-meals, climbing-wall, four-court youth zone — right in the heart of Lancashire

OnSide's Preston Youth Zone was named "the Vault" by over 2,000 local young people. Youth zones are at their busiest after school and into the evening, so the school day is a natural window to put a purpose-built, well-staffed space to even more use for young people who need it. To be clear, this is a proposal we're putting forward, not an arrangement already in place — we haven't yet approached the Vault's team, and we'd shape it together with them. It's an idea grounded in a model that is already running successfully elsewhere.

🏀 Four-court sports hall🧗 Climbing wall🎵 Music & performing-arts studios🍽️ £1 hot meals💼 Employability workshops🧑‍🏫 Youth workers on site

WHY A REAL PLACE MATTERS

For an anxious or excluded child, "alternative provision" usually sounds like a punishment. A youth zone flips that — pupils come to a place their peers choose to be. Belonging becomes the intervention, and attendance follows it. It is the difference between learning alone in a bedroom and learning somewhere that feels like opportunity.

A day at the Vault — what it could look like

Arrive & settle

Structured morning routine — activity, reflection, self-management — with youth workers on site.

Live lessons

Purple Ruler teachers, live, in micro-cohorts of six or fewer — the academic core for the morning block.

☼

Midday movement

Sport in the four-court hall, climbing or the arts studios — plus a £1 hot meal. Regulation, then back to it.

Lessons & therapy

Afternoon teaching, with pupils stepping out for therapy, mentoring or 1:1 support as their plan needs.

→

Toward a return

Engagement logged, attendance climbing — a real setting to phase a staged return to mainstream from.

THE YEAR AHEAD · 12 · 3 of 6

How the Vault would better support Lancashire's pupils

An online school inside a supervised physical base — the reach of live remote teaching with the warmth, structure and safeguarding of a real building, in the heart of the county.

🤝

Somewhere to belong

A supervised daytime base where out-of-school pupils learn together, overseen by partner or LA staff — not isolated at home. Belonging treated as the first intervention, the way back to attendance.

🏀

Movement in the middle of the day

Sport, climbing and the arts built into the day — regulation and energy between lessons, on site, so the school day looks like a school day, not a screen.

💻

Step in and out of live lessons

Pupils join their Purple Ruler lessons in micro-cohorts of six or fewer from the building, then step out for therapy, mentoring or a meal — an online school wrapped in real-world support.

🧩

Therapy and mentoring on the ground

On-site counselling, mentoring and pastoral wraparound run alongside the teaching — the SEMH support this cohort needs, in the room, not on a waiting list.

🍽️

A safe, fed, watched day

£1 hot meals, youth workers and a safeguarded environment — for vulnerable pupils the LA holds the Section 19 duty for, a setting you can stand behind to a panel or a parent.

🚪

A real building to reintegrate into

Re-entering a physical, social, structured setting is itself a stepping-stone back toward mainstream — far easier to phase a return from than from a bedroom alone.

🏛️ We'd welcome exploring the Vault with you. It's a purpose-built space already in Lancashire, and the model on the next slides is running successfully in the same OnSide network in another borough — so bringing the idea to Preston would be a conversation to start together, not a construction project.

THE YEAR AHEAD · 12 · 4 of 6

The same model, already running — Future Youth Zone

And this isn't theoretical. The Vault is part of the OnSide Youth Zone network — and we already run exactly this model in another Youth Zone in the same family: Future Youth Zone in Barking & Dagenham. The same institution, the same daytime-base idea, already live.

🤝 Future Youth Zone — the same model, already running

At Future Youth Zone — the OnSide Youth Zone in Barking & Dagenham — the local authority commissioned Evolution Sports Group to build a daytime inclusion centre in the hours the building would otherwise sit empty. Most pupils arrive on local-authority referral, having found mainstream wasn't the right fit. Purple Ruler delivers the live academics into that space: structured morning routines, online teaching in micro-cohorts of six or fewer, with on-site therapy, counselling, mentoring and sport running alongside the classroom. Teachers join remotely from a national network; the care and the sense of belonging come from the staff in the room. The provision puts engagement first, then attendance, then — as a bonus — attainment: exactly the order this cohort needs. It is the Vault model, already proven.

3 yrs

Partnership, and deepening

A relationship that has grown year on year — itself a signal it works

400.7

Hours of Academy delivery

Live Purple Ruler teaching logged across the partnership

+46pts

KS4 Maths, entry→exit

Average learner attainment 33%→80% — with gains across every class tracked

THE YEAR AHEAD · 12 · 5 of 6

Barking & Dagenham — how one borough built it, in their own words

This is the daytime inclusion centre the whole model is built on: our delivery partner Evolution Education inside a youth zone that used to sit empty by day. Tap any face to play the recorded interview — it's the same step-by-step playbook Lancashire could follow with the Vault in Preston.

Bal GillLondon Borough of Barking & Dagenham

"There are not enough places within the borough for children who are not in school. We need to find new models, new ways of reaching them."

The commissioning case, in the LA's words

"With the increase in EBSA since COVID, we had a lot of children that found it really hard to engage in education… we were paying quite a lot of money on home tuition. It was more cost-effective for us to go through Purple Ruler."

Demand outstrips supply. The model pairs the reach of remote teaching with the warmth of a real place — commissioned, accountable and scalable, in a building that used to sit empty.

The five-step playbook any authority can follow

Identify the right community asset

A building with daytime availability that already serves young people — a youth zone with a climbing wall, training kitchen, sports court and youth workers on site. It makes provision feel like opportunity, not punishment. In Lancashire, that's the Vault in Preston.

Commission through the right provider partnership

Evolution delivers the place and the pastoral wrap; Purple Ruler delivers the teaching, structure and therapy. The split is the lesson — we teach, the partner holds safeguarding, welfare and LA comms on the ground.

Recruit the students who've already slipped the net

EBSA, post-exclusion and not-in-school young people — structured morning routines, online instruction in micro-cohorts of six or fewer, and on-site therapy and counselling alongside the academic work.

Structure the finances to sustain it

Remote teaching keeps specialist staffing light; daytime use turns a building that costs money to maintain into value in hours it would otherwise sit empty. Effective and financially sustainable.

Plan for scale from the beginning

Embed replicable structures so the model repeats across venues and neighbouring authorities — a Purple Ruler-powered inclusion network, not a single site.

THE YEAR AHEAD · 12 · 6 of 6

Hear it from the people who live it

The partners who built it on the ground, and the students who turned a corner inside it — tap any face to play.

Eugene DwaahCEO, Evolution

Partner"We were restricting these children's life chances with the placements we were making."

Lloyd DwaahEvolution Education

Partner"Attendance, engagement, then — as a bonus — attainment. That's the order that works."

Gershom ClarkeCEO, Future Youth Zone

Partner"AP usually looks like punishment. Here it feels like an opportunity — and the children frame it that way too."

First StudentStudent

Student"At first I didn't even want to come closer. Now I learn more here — they know what they're doing." Now eyeing sixth form.

Second studentStudent

Student"A four-week placement became two months. I like it more than mainstream. I want to go to uni."

Recorded interviews · Future Youth Zone, Barking & Dagenham, April 2026 · names withheld. 2,452 lessons delivered across the borough; 8 schools + AP partner; 1,231 more booked. Full review →

THE YEAR AHEAD · 13

Quality you can audit — every lesson, against a rubric

Every Purple Ruler lesson is observed against the same quality-assurance rubric and scored — so the standard you're buying is measured and improved, not assumed. It's evidence your own QA and Ofsted reporting can lean on.

🗂️

Planning & sequencing

A coherent, sequenced curriculum with clear objectives — not standalone sessions.

🙋

Engagement & participation

Cameras and mics on, pupils responding — the first signal we track.

🧩

Adaptive teaching & SEND

Adjusted to each pupil's need and EHCP — the individualised teaching Ofsted praised.

❓

Questioning & assessment

Assessment for learning every lesson — checking understanding, closing gaps.

🤝

Relationships & climate

A calm, nurturing space where pupils feel safe to take part.

🛡️

Safeguarding & online conduct

Safeguarding and online-safety standards checked live.

How the rubric stays live — observe, feed back, coach, re-observe

Graded observation→ Scored 1–3 per metric→ Coaching where it dips→ Re-observed to confirm→ Half-termly QA summary to Lancashire

The rubric is shared with your team and a QA summary comes to Lancashire each half term — quality made visible, ready for a panel or an inspector.

THE YEAR AHEAD · 14

Safeguarding and data, held to a school's standard

Pupils out of school are among the most vulnerable a local authority holds — so safeguarding and information governance are the foundation here, not an add-on. Purple Ruler is KCSIE-aligned and operates as your data processor, to the same statutory bar a school is held to, with one clear safeguarding line back to your team.

🧷

A named DSL & same-day triage

A designated safeguarding lead triages every concern the same day, with a clear escalation route to your team and the right caseworker — and a documented trail.

🚦

Three reporting routes

Pupils, parents and staff each have a clear way to raise a concern — so nothing depends on a single channel being open.

✅

Vetted, DBS-checked teachers

Every teacher is recruited, DBS-checked and trained to safer-recruitment standards — the same expectation you hold of a school.

💻

Online safety by design

Live-lesson conduct, monitored platforms and online-safety routines built into delivery and checked as part of QA.

🔐

Data processor under UK GDPR

We hold pupil data only to deliver the provision you commission, on your lawful basis — including acting on a request to stop contact while still informing you as the commissioning authority.

📄

EHCP & EPEN, handled correctly

We work from the EPEN and referral information you share; your team retains EHCP documents and routing, and we deliver SEND-informed provision against the plan.

📎 One agreement, set once. A single programme-level data-sharing and safeguarding agreement covers every placement — so a child can start without fresh paperwork each time, and the terms are clear to your DPO from day one.

THE YEAR AHEAD · 15

Three levels of sight — nothing happens you can't see

Reporting isn't one document a term — it's layered, so the right people see the right thing at the right moment. From the live lesson all the way up to a county view, Lancashire keeps oversight without chasing for it.

Real-time attendance

Every lesson is registered live. Case officers see their own pupils' attendance as it happens — not a week later.

Welfare & escalation logging

Welfare calls and concerns are logged against the pupil with outcomes visible — so the chase is evidenced and the escalation trail is clean.

Half-termly progress reports

An attendance, attainment and engagement report per pupil — grades, attendance and a teacher commentary — each half term, plus an extra on exception when a setting changes.

Wired to the right case officer, automatically

Caseworker / EHCP officer named at enrolment→ Added as a key contact on the pupil→ Weekly attendance & welfare report→ Lands in that officer's inbox, per pupil

Reports are produced per pupil — clean to upload into your systems without confidentiality errors — and the right case officer is wired in from the referral, so the weekly attendance and welfare report reaches them without anyone having to forward it.

THE YEAR AHEAD · 16

A referral route built around how your team works

The fastest provision is the one that's easy to refer into. For 2026/27 the enrolment route is being shaped around Lancashire's own process — EPEN-led referrals in, the right case officer wired in automatically, and a pupil learning inside 48 hours.

Refer with the EPEN

Referrals come in with the EPEN attached as a PDF — the up-to-date contact and context your team already holds — uploaded straight through the enrolment portal.

Wire in the case officer

Each upload carries a caseworker / EHCP-officer field, so the right officer is added as a key contact and automatically receives that pupil's weekly attendance and welfare reports.

Live in 48 hours

The pupil drops into an existing group and is in live lessons within 48 hours — a baseline placement that holds learning steady while any SEND review runs its course.

Refined with you in August

We revisit the form together in August, once Lancashire's new Education Inclusion Officer structure is settled, so the route matches your team for September.

Continuity is built in: pupils still on roll on the last day of term are carried into September unless your team says otherwise, with the summer used for re-enrolment contact — so no child falls through the gap between school years.

THE YEAR AHEAD · 17

Run as one team, on a steady rhythm

A county-wide provision needs a heartbeat, not ad-hoc check-ins. The partnership runs on a fixed cadence — strategic and operational kept separate, so the big decisions and the day-to-day fixes each get their own table.

📅 Fortnightly stakeholder meeting

The strategic table — your team and ours reviewing the cohort, placements, progress and any decisions that need both sides. Where the programme is steered.

🔧 Weekly operational catch-up

A short weekly continuous-improvement session — fixing the practical things fast, so an issue never waits a fortnight to be solved.

Across the year

Fortnightly strategic + weekly operational→ Wind down regular meetings by end of term→ Summer planning session→ Set up for September

As the year settles the regular meetings ease off, and a summer planning session sets up September — re-enrolment, the refreshed referral form and the cohort carried across. A rhythm that scales with the partnership, not one that depends on any single person.

THE YEAR AHEAD · 18

Written down, so everyone knows how it works

Two handbooks sit behind the programme — one for the people who commission and inspect it, one for the families living it — so the offer is transparent end to end, and nothing depends on a conversation someone half-remembers.

📘 The Ofsted-aligned provider handbook

The full reference for your team and for inspection — curriculum intent, the QA rubric, safeguarding and online-safety policy, the SEND approach, reporting and statutory hours, all mapped to DfE expectations and our OEAS accreditation. The document that lets Lancashire evidence the quality of what it commissions, to a panel or an inspector.

👪 The parent-facing handbook

A plain, welcoming guide for families — the essentials up top (how lessons work, who to contact, what to expect in the first week), with the deeper detail below for parents who want it. Written to start a placement on trust, not jargon. Families also have a self-serve help centre online at help.purpleruler.com/parents.

Both are shared with Lancashire for review before they go live — and kept current as the programme grows.

THE YEAR AHEAD · 19

What 2026/27 could look like for Lancashire

You finished the year with 189 pupils on a proven core. The Academy programme keeps every one of them, broadens what they're taught, and gives your team a single, predictable way to scale.

Commissioning route

Replacing referral-by-referral placement across the county

48hr

Referral to learning

Into an existing group — no bespoke onboarding

£100

Per pupil, per week

One flat, fully-inclusive Academy core — the budget you set

And it's built to last: one provider, one safeguarding standard and one county view — a single thread that holds steady for your pupils as Lancashire reorganises into new unitary authorities. The provision your team relies on doesn't have to be rebuilt every time the structure around it changes.