APocalypse How?

The quiet conflict in alternative provision just went loud.

Unregistered alternative provision (AP) has the Sword of Damocles hovering above it. In May 2024, when the previous government consulted on plans to tighten up rules on how these settings were to be operated, it was clear that the Conservatives looked to take a hard line. While some hoped this policy had gone the way of many others during the post-election policy hiatus, a number of APs headed for the helipad to board the last chopper to independent school status. They may feel they made the right move...

AP has been the poor relation since I fell into education. This appeared to have been recognised with a specific call for new Alternative Provision schools in 2022. 2022 wasn't really the halcyon days for much; however, partnerships between LAs and providers to establish new AP appeared to be a ray of light. 2023’s report by the Children’s Commissioner traces through to the 2024 crackdown. Plenty of tar was applied to the brush but not all of it reached deserving recipients.

Ministers strengthened Ofsted’s powers to police and prosecute unregistered illegal schools - all this accompanied by the now familiar sounds of moral panic and the pointing of fingers. “Witch!” was the cry as a genuinely egregious example of the type was raided and shut down. There followed a collective acceptance / refusal to challenge that limited and specific examples are just that and for some can provide a useful brickbat for all settings within a broader typology – independent schools anyone?

Beleaguered AP settings may have hoped that a change of government might usher in a new plan. Perhaps everyone would get back to forgetting this was a thing. The focus on independent schools and de facto pause on 67 specialist academies (including new AP schools) grabbed such headlines as there were. "Register, Regulate and Raise Standards", July 2025’s view from the Children’s Commissioner again highlighted risks inherent in the current system. In fairness there were references to good practice in unregistered AP, however, that’s not going to get eyeballs on TikTok, so the prevailing narrative remains “Registered Good, Unregistered Bad’.

On 31st August this year, Damocles’ trusty sword dropped a few more inches with new guidance, just (and I mean just) in time for the new academic year. Not wishing to waste time over the summer break and following on from further government advice on school uniform, DfE released non-statutory, voluntary national standards for non-school APs. This was accompanied by the publication of the government response to the 2024 consultation.

In many respects, the timing of all this is interesting and while it occasioned a change of plan from my usual Sunday routine, the lines taken weren't particularly surprising. We’ve been working with unregistered APs for years - be that advising on free school applications or following the (whisper it) independent route. We’ve turned down far more commissions than we’ve taken simply because, despite our consultant’s myriad skills, sometimes the peg is too square and the hole too round.

Many unregistered APs are small businesses that exist on shoestring budgets. For these, the chopper will have left way before they get anywhere near to boarding. Setting aside the many and various pitfalls around the physical school environment, the major challenge is showing how an AP is providing an ‘appropriate’ curriculum. Innovations such as directing work in a car repair workshop in iambic pentameter were considered a little too cutting edge, alongside instructing hair and beauty in Mandarin.

In 2023, the Centre for Social Justice remarked that the same process applies to approve the next Eton as a five place AP (I paraphrase). So, even the salvation offered by independent school status is fraught. Choose a regulatory process, poorly equipped to judge the nimble, tailored arrangements that is a hallmark of good AP; or the continued pressure from a system that doesn't appear to value your work.

A lucky few will find a route out of uncertainty while still managing to offer genuinely alternative provision. The irony of these being established as independent schools would not be lost on Kubrick or Conrad. Elsewhere, others look nervously over their shoulders while waiting for a place on the Huey. They are faced with the production of voluminous documentation to submit to attain a status that appears to be at least equal in terms of the government's ambivalence. For many, diluting their successful offer to almost homeopathic levels may be too high a price to pay.

The horror, the horror.