Our Guide to starting an Alternative Provision is by far our most popular post of all time and has been read over 20,000 times since it was written in 2024. Since then though we’ve had the DfE’s non-school AP standards, a new Ofsted framework and the SEN white paper. The AP world has changed – maybe not hugely, but there have been some important subtle changes. In that time we’ve also visited far more settings and supported more AP’s to open. Everytime we do that we learn, learn more about what leads to success and more about what helps struggling young people.
This is our updated guide to opening a Non-School Alternative Provision. If you’re interested in internal AP or setting up a registered setting then read these as well:
https://www.closethegaps.co.uk/updates/becoming-a-registered-school
https://www.closethegaps.co.uk/updates/iap-guide
A couple of years ago it was easier to set up an AP. There had been a rise in suspensions and exclusions and young people struggling to access mainstream. The oversight of ‘unregistered’ provision was less rigourous and budgets were a little more forgiving. The competition is higher now, expected standards are raised and set-up from scratch is more challenging. Whilst this is the case, nothing worth doing is ever easy. There are still plenty of providers we work with setting up successfully and if you’re prepared to work to a high standard and offer great care and service to your young people, their families and schools then there is still a need for more strong providers in most areas.
Here’s our guide to starting a Non-School AP – now freshly updated and more detailed than ever. Read it, hopefully it’s helpful but if you want to go further then our Start-Up package helps you take the next steps with even more support with a suite of policy and paperwork templates, planning tools and additional advice it’s available here:
Guide to starting a Non-School Alternative Provision
The mainstream education system doesn’t work all of the time for all children and young people. Some children have SEN needs that their local school just isn’t able to support, other young people have trauma or SEMH needs that mean they can’t access education. Good alternative provision brings an option and support that can be literally life-changing for a struggling young person.
Starting an alternative provision
As part of the support, we give at Close the Gaps we often come across people who have ambitions to start up their own alternative provision and we answer lots of questions around this. For someone who wants to develop a specialised provision that won’t fall under the Ofsted framework (a ‘Non-School’ or unregistered AP) here’s a guide to what you’ll need to do to open. On one level it’s incredibly simple – there’s no formal compliance or registration needed, on another, an AP works with the most vulnerable children and young people in the education system so you’ve got to get things right. The guide includes what you’ll need in terms of policies and paperwork to fulfil most local approval processes but also some of those less obvious areas for success that come from our experience of having worked with so many provisions.
Whilst the steps below are practically relatively straightforward, setting up an AP is not an easy option. Working with struggling young people takes unmeasurable levels of patience and compassion. These young people deserve the very best standards you can deliver in terms of safeguarding and health and safety and delivering outcomes. There’s also limited resources in the system, no one will give you referrals on a plate, you’ll have to work hard to gain a foothold and reputation before things really take off.
Here’s what we believe are the steps to take to be successful if you want to start an AP.
1) Do a feasibility study.
You may be starting completely from scratch, or your AP may be growing organically from home schooling or an out of hours tutor service. Whatever it is, you need to be sure your idea is feasible. You can have all the motivation and inspiration there can be, you may have worked with the kind of young people who need your AP all through your career but if the local market isn’t helpful to AP start-ups then you’ll find it very difficult to succeed.
You want to be sure that, if you’re putting money, time and resource into making an AP happen you do all you can before you take the plunge to make sure it is going to be successful.
Every local region is different and every local authority has a different approach to AP so it is important to check the feasibility for where you are going to be based. It's helpful to know the answers to the following questions to understand the local demand and whether your idea is going to be sustainable long-term:
· What is the existing provision like in your area?
Obviously, you won’t be opening in an empty market. You need to know what the competition is locally. The AP market is fairly saturated in some areas and really in demand in others. Who are the other providers in your area and are they already delivering well?
· What are the exclusion/suspension rates like in local schools – is there a demand for places?
Talking to local schools can help you understand the kind of challenges they are trying to solve with their young people. You can find out what commissioning staff look for in an AP and where they have found the gaps in the local market to be.
· What kinds of needs are local commissioners looking to meet through AP placements? Who are the key decision makers in those commissioners?
It isn’t always easy to get conversations with commissioners before you’re ready to take students but a quick conversation to scope out what they look for and who needs influencing to make successful referrals can be really important. In schools the key people will be SENCO’s or pastoral leads. In the local authority roles vary but there is often someone who heads up AP or commissioning for AP.
· What are the prices of local AP’s? Will your finances work on these kinds of levels? AP’s charge as little as £60 for a day of supervised work placement up to £300 plus for a very specialised or supervised placement.
Prices vary hugely on a regional level and even on a quite local level. It is important to pitch yourself at a level that offers value especially as you are setting up and before you have a good reputation built. To do this well you’ll need some local intelligence around what others are charging (which isn’t easy to get). You also need to financially model what your service will actually cost to deliver. It’s no use pitching a price to commissioners only to find it means you can’t pay staff properly or cover your rent.
The most useful people to speak to are probably the pastoral leads in local schools. Their contacts can usually be found on school websites so arrange a conversation with them, they are your future customer base, so it is a great way to make links ahead of time too. Also check out local authority websites for details of any approved provisions in the area or approval processes that are needed. It’s no use setting up an alternative provision based on the forest school model if there are already three locally who are under-subscribed.
We offer a feasibility study service where a Close the Gaps associate will do the legwork for you, analysing the local context, making links with key stakeholders and helping to inform your decision making. Get in contact here if that’s something that interests you.
2) Know your legal position.
Alternative provisions that are “unregistered” under the Ofsted framework (referred to as ‘Non-School alternative provisions - NSAP) are only allowed if they don’t meet the criteria for registration as a school. An AP provider should be registered as an independent school if it provides full-time education to five or more pupils of a compulsory school age, or one such pupil who is looked-after or has an EHCP. The punishment for running an unregistered school can be a fine or imprisonment so it is important to stay within the rules. The DfE see a definite place for NSAP in the sector but it is as a temporary destination not a long-term solution for learners.
Unfortunately, ‘full-time’ isn’t defined anywhere in terms of hours. Many AP’s use 18 hours as a guide but that level has become outdated. A place is considered to be providing full-time education if it provides ‘all, or substantially all, of a child’s education’. The new schools and wellbeing bill changes the definition to somewhere which delivers “all or the majority” of a child’s education – obviously, this can be very few hours if the child isn’t attending or accessing any thing else. This can create complications where a school only provides a part-time timetable for a child, or you are working with a school refuser. Attending your provision part-time shouldn’t preclude the possibility that the pupil could attend education provided elsewhere – a part-time place of 3 hours a day between 10 and 1 each day would realistically stop a pupil from attending elsewhere and so could be seen as full-time even though it is below 18 hours across the week. A safe level is to take students only for two days or 4 sessions a week. The only caveat to this is that the ‘part-time’ definition includes looking at weeks along with hours. The practical outworking of this means that it is allowed to take pupils for a very time-limited full-time placement (a maximum of 12 weeks) as a short-term intervention.
If you find that the kind of young people you’d like to work with need you to offer a full-time curriculum then it may be you have to think about formal registration with Ofsted. That’s a whole different conversation and we’ve written lots about it in articles across our updates.
There is now a set of voluntary standards set up by the DfE for Non-School AP’s. These will be becoming mandatory at some point soon and are being used more often by LAs for QA checks. They are a good place to start in terms of compliance and making sure you are doing what you should be as you set up.
If you are looking at a registered model then the big difference is that you have to offer a full-time education that covers a broad and balanced curriculum. You’ll have to evidence meeting the Independent School Standards. This is doable for a start-up but does require significant investment (just the registration inspection is £2500) and preferably a good understanding of school leadership.
3) Clarify your USP.
The very best AP’s are clear about who they are aimed at and who they work well with, and they stay focussed on these pupils. There are a wide variety of pupils who struggle with mainstream education across all key stages. There are those at the end of KS4 who need support with exams and those in KS3 that struggled to cope with the transition from primary. There are those who are anxious school refusers and those who need close supervision due to the risk they pose to others. Remember also, that AP now encompasses everything from traditional premises based approaches through to vocational specialists, online providers or outreach in learners homes. I have visited AP’s at go-kart tracks, in forests, sports centres and have worked with those based solely in an online community, the variety is huge.
Who do you have a passion for working with, which struggling young people do you want to help?
It really helps to define who you help, what you help them to do and how you plan to do this.
We help………to……….by………… is a useful template for this. For example, “we help KS4 school refusers to successfully transition to their next place of learning by providing a nurturing trauma informed setting.”
It helps you in the design of your AP, it’s curriculum and processes and also helps you when you’re selling yourself to commissioners who can pick you as an AP as a best option for a pupil they have with those particular needs. It isn’t enough any more just to offer a safe place for children and young people, AP needs to be progressive, an intervention that helps move learners onto next steps, maybe back to school, maybe a specialist provision, maybe a post-16 provider. It may take a long time but commissioners are really interested in outcomes – deciding what outcomes you are aiming for will help you as you design what your offer is going to be.
4) Think about your offer
If you know the needs of the young people you want to work with then that is your starting point, your baseline. Maybe it’s young people who are too anxious to leave their houses, maybe it’s those on the edge of the criminal justice system. If you also know the outcomes you’re aiming for then your offer can be shaped by what input they need to move between the two. Do they need to be able to improve basic reading skills, confidence, relationships, safety or to have an ability to deal with conflict? Distill the key skills they need and then make sure your offer each day is helping to deliver that. If you work closely with struggling young people already you’ll know that they often mostly need safety, reassurance and confidence building from strong relationships. It must be said though that commissioners will prefer some academic outcomes as part of your provision and it will be harder to sell places without this so bear that in mind.
5) Pull together your paperwork.
Different schools and local authorities will ask for different things in place in order to check that their pupils are safe with you. The bare minimum is a safeguarding policy suite, comprehensive insurance and proof that your staff are recruited under safer recruitment guidelines. In reality, most will ask for a much more comprehensive list, and it pays to aim to model yourself on best practice in this area. The DfE’s voluntary standards are a good starting point. It is much more impressive for a commissioner thinking about whether to use you to receive a full set of professional policies and paperwork than just the basics. You may wish for additional policies than these, but this list is a helpful starting point.
· A curriculum plan (an unregistered provision has more leeway with curriculum, but a plan means that schools can make sure what they do with pupils complements your offering. It also demonstrates your academic rigour)
· Behaviour policy (including your approach to sanctions, suspensions and exclusion)
· Anti-bullying policy
· Complaints procedure
· Admissions Policy
· Data protection policy
· E-safety policy
· Fire safety policy.
· First Aid policy
· Health and Safety policy
· Managing allegations policy
· Safeguarding policy (including safer recruitment)
We offer a service that develops policies bespoke for your organisation or, alternatively, we offer a template policy set in our AP start-up pack:
Our package is the most cost-effective way to get a professionally grounded start for your Non-School AP. It includes more than 35 editable template documents including a full policy suite. It gives you access to time with our consultants and a route to answer queries as you develop. It is everything you'll need to plan your AP with confidence.
In terms of contracting for work with commissioners you’ll need a Service Level Agreement. Make sure it is clear with what you need from them as well as what you’ll deliver. You can’t do your job without full information around the young people, good prompt communication and support to facilitate a good reintegration at the end of a placement.
You’re also expected to have insurance in place – a minimum of public liability insurance (£5,000,000), employers liability insurance (£10,000,000) and professional negligence insurance (£2,000,000)). This can often be a challenge to find so be prepared to spend some time working on this, it is often easier to use a broker who specialises in education that generic business insurance sites.
All educational establishments also have a single central record - a register of the qualifications, recruitment and vetting checks for all staff and volunteers. Commissioners could ask to see this and will definitely ask for a letter of assurance that these checks have taken place.
There are some additional documents asked for by local authorities sometimes, particularly during tendering processes. This can include a range of more detailed documents such as financial records or critical incident plans. Every one of the 130+ local authorities has a different approach so be prepared to adapt and tailor your compliance documents around what they may require especially if you work across multiple authorities.
In addition to the paperwork, you need to make sure your staff have the appropriate skills and training. As a minimum you need a designated safeguarding lead and deputy, all staff trained in safeguarding, first aid cover and a responsible person for health and safety and fire safety. Many commissioners will also expect someone to be trained in Safer recruitment. Training all staff in a de-escalation and physical intervention strategy like Team Teach is also very much recommended even if you think you’ll never need it.
6) Check your premises.
Your premises needs to be safe for young people and you are responsible for this whether it is a shared premises or just for your use. The standards that are expected for an independent school are helpful as guidance here. In terms of standards for the premises, these are some of the independent schools requirements which set a good standard however you choose to set up:
· A detailed fire risk assessment is carried out by a competent person.
· Fire evacuation plan is in place.
· All activities have risk assessments which identify and mitigate risks to staff and pupils.
· Premises should include a toilet and washing facilities for the sole use of pupils (water must not carry a scalding threat)
· Premises should include changing and showering facilities where pupils are taught PE.
· Lighting should be appropriate including external lighting to make sure entry and exit to the buildings are safe.
· Premises should include a medical area for treatment and short-term care of pupils.
· Premises should have access to suitable drinking water.
· Health and safety checks should be thorough and carried out regularly.
· Access to the site is managed and restricted or risks mitigated.
7) Get Local authority approval.
There is no consistent approach between local authorities. Some have no approval processes; others have stringent checks of every provision. You need to approach all the local authorities from which you want to take students to work through their approval processes. It is sometimes hard to find the details and the correct contact in the LA to work with. A starting point is to look at the local offer on the LA website or to approach another local AP who should be able to pass on some links. Find out about tendering processes to get commissioned places from LAs.
The approval processes should be fairly straightforward if you follow the other points on this guide, but the approval process isn’t always available all year round. It’s helpful to work on this as early as possible in the process. Work streams from LA’s tend to take time to develop, don’t expect instant results for LA commissioners.
8) Contact commissioners.
Once you know the kind of young people you want to work with and have your paperwork in place it’s time to approach commissioners to try and sell your places. This gets easier when your reputation builds so the early pupils will be the most important.
Depending on you provision there are likely to be three routes to filling places:
· Local authorities – most local authorities (but not all!) commission places directly from Non-School AP as part of their local inclusion strategies. To get pupils through this route you normally have to be accepted as an organisation through a LA tender or approval process. These don’t guarantee you young people but make it much more likely. These processes can be really productive in terms of places but generally need starting well ahead of time. They take a long time to work through.
· Schools – schools often commission AP directly for their young people. They can be much more quick, responsive and communicable than LAs but they generally work on relationship and trust. The challenge with schools is getting a conversation with key staff to begin to build that trust in the first place.
· Parents – some parents will fund places directly with APs. This could be because they are home educating and need the support or because they can influence SEN budgets for their children. Get involved in local SEN and home education groups to advertise your services.
It would be most helpful to have some personal conversations with the decision makers in schools. Schools can make decisions and buy places very quickly whereas local authority places often only come after a longer tendering process so go with schools first. You want to speak to the pastoral leads or SENCOs who often head up the alternative provision purchasing and deal with the pupils who are struggling in mainstream. Cold calling doesn’t work very well in schools as staff are normally too busy to take calls during the day. Sending emails and arranging to meet people in person is normally most effective. If you have a premises ready, then inviting staff to visit to see your set up can work well too.
9) Put good frameworks in place.
A good AP is more than high quality health and safety and safeguarding structures. Your frameworks around the day-to-day running of your provision are key to success for the pupils and their outcomes. These are the things that can bring life-changing success.
You need to think about the way you will do the following:
· Pupil supervision during the day
· Make sure your staff are suitably qualified (some schools will prefer qualified teachers as part of the team)
· When pupils arrive, make sure you have a clear understanding of their learning needs, academic levels, risks and any safeguarding concerns.
· Support pupils in reading, literacy and numeracy.
· Prepare your pupils for transitions and/or qualifications at the end of the placement.
· Track, communicate and intervene around attendance (on a daily basis)
· Communicate positive and negative behaviour and progress with families and commissioners regularly.
· Address personal, local and national safeguarding needs with pupils
· Evaluate and report pupil progress – the NSAP standards and the Ofsted framework expect a formal six-weekly review by commissioners as to whether the placement is working.
· Set up ways to co-ordinate with commissioners in communication to families?
· If you can only have one additional piece of training for staff make sure they understand trauma and its effects on young people?
10) Start slowly.
Transitions are challenging times for everyone in an AP. Don’t expect to introduce lots of new pupils all at the same time. Start slowly, establish good norms for behaviour, care and learning and introduce new young people at your pace.
To be honest a slow start is likely to be enforced on you. Don’t expect an immediate up-take of places. You will have to market yourself well and build a reputation before you can start your waiting list!
11) Grow your reputation.
The very best selling point for schools is to work successfully with their young people. As a previous commissioner myself I know how convicning it is when an AP works successfully and engages a young person you have really struggled to work with. Be the best you can in terms of communication with commissioners and in engaging the young people you work with. If you’ve worked well with young people from a school before and they have attended well and transitioned successfully back into mainstream or into their next place of education, then you’ll be the first AP schools will try when they are placing students.
We’re currently offering our more detailed AP opening guide in a package with over 35 planning documents, checklists and policy templates. This is a paid service but one we’d recommend for those who are serious about moving their AP ambitions through to reality. Have a look at what we can do to make your plans go more smoothly here.
If you’re starting a new AP and want support, we regularly support settings in feasibility studies, in setting up policies and processes and in meeting standards for local authority approval. Our support can cover full Health and Safety and Safeguarding audits or help through LA tendering processes. Do contact us via the website if you need some support.
We also support AP’s through Ofsted registration and inspections so get in touch if you want some help as a registered provision.
