The latest Department for Education figures show 28,300 school-arranged AP placements were open in January 2026, with off-site provision for behavioural support accounting for half of those placements. Among pupils in school-arranged AP, 37.4% had an EHCP and a further 37.5% were receiving SEN support. These figures only really represent a fraction of students in alternative placements. There’s an industry-wide challenge in providing suitable education for pupils whose needs are not met through a standard school timetable. The DfE has started to address online AP directly through its SEND reform programme. Its July 2026 consultation considered how schools and local authorities use accredited online education providers, including when online provision is appropriate, how long it should continue, how children remain connected to a school, and how responsibilities for quality and oversight should operate. Clearly, online AP is now part of a live policy discussion about the structure and accountability of education outside school. But what circumstances make online AP a sensible commissioning decision, and what should a school expect the provision to achieve? When pupils need early intervention Some pupils also struggle to access school in person. The reasons can be varied: a period of illness, significant anxiety, a breakdown in a previous placement, prolonged absence or circumstances at home that make attendance difficult. Online AP can remove one particular obstacle by allowing a pupil to access live teaching without travelling to a school site. This can be crucial when the pupil remains capable of engaging academically but cannot currently sustain a conventional school routine and needs a calmer, safer space to reset. For example, a pupil recovering from illness may be able to attend lessons from home while their health improves. Or a pupil experiencing anxiety about the school environment may initially engage from a familiar setting before working towards a return, such as primary student Ellis, who experienced severe anxiety about attending school and joined us to continue his education without triggering distress. Removing the daily pressure of the school building reduced his anxiety and created the conditions in which he could engage with learning again. When you need to make on-site Inclusion Bases work in practice More and more mainstream schools are setting up internal inclusion bases to keep vulnerable pupils on-site and connected to their peers. The practical challenge for schools isn’t finding a spare classroom; it’s staffing it. An inclusion base might house a dozen students with completely different needs, year groups, and subject requirements at any given time. A pastoral lead or teaching assistant can supervise the room and manage behaviour, but they cannot realistically teach higher-tier maths, triple science, and humanities all at once. With schools managing ring-fenced allocations from the government’s Inclusive Mainstream Fund, many leaders are looking at how to resource these internal spaces effectively without inflating permanent overheads. With online AP, pupils can remain on-site – attending registration, mixing with friends at break times, and staying anchored to their home school – while logging into live, teacher-led online lessons from the inclusion base for specific subjects. It bridges the gap between pastoral care and academic delivery, allowing schools to run a robust inclusion unit backed by specialist teachers they otherwise couldn’t staff locally. When there’s a lack of subject expertise Curriculum access is another reason schools may commission online AP, particularly for pupils in KS4 who have already lost substantial teaching time or who require subjects that are difficult to provide through a small traditional AP setting. A physical AP provider may have strong expertise in behaviour, relationships, and re-engagement, but limited capacity to offer a wide range of GCSE subjects. Staffing a specialist subject for a very small number of pupils is difficult in any setting, and the problem becomes more acute when pupils have different examination specifications, prior attainment and timetables. Online provision can give schools access to specialist teachers without requiring every subject to have a physical classroom. Academy21’s current offer covers KS2 to KS5, including GCSE and A-Levels through our sister school, King’s InterHigh, as well as Functional Skills provision. Our model includes four 40-minute lessons each day from Monday to Thursday, with additional provision available within our wider programme. When specialist support is out of reach Mainstream schools are expected to deliver higher standards of inclusion and early intervention, yet most cannot realistically maintain permanent teams of educational psychologists, speech and language therapists, or specialist SEN practitioners. While the government’s £1.8 billion Experts at Hand programme aims to build local banks of SEND specialists to support mainstream settings, severe recruitment bottlenecks and massive waiting lists mean specialist help is rarely available on demand when a student needs it. Accredited online providers often bring built-in multidisciplinary expertise – including experienced SEN coordinators, trauma-informed educators, and staff skilled in navigating complex profiles like autism, ADHD, and school-based anxiety – giving schools an immediate way to bridge the gap while wider local support is being processed. When flexibility is key Every pupil and situation is different, and true inclusion means making sure no student feels like an afterthought. Whether a school needs a short intervention for a pupil who is beginning to disengage, additional curriculum capacity during staffing pressure, GCSE support for learners with inconsistent attendance, or a temporary timetable while a new educational arrangement is established, every placement must still foster a deep sense of connectedness and belonging. Because online AP is inherently flexible, it can support a variety of use cases without making disengaged or vulnerable learners feel isolated. It scales up or down and adjusts to meet varying needs – ensuring pupils remain actively connected to their learning community and peers – without placing significant strain on budgets or resources. Academy21’s current provision reflects this holistic range. Our AP offer covers exclusion and sixth-day requirements alongside early intervention, GCSE resits, GCSE support, and short-term capacity requirements. Crucially, our approach ensures that whether placements are short-, medium-, or long-term, students feel valued, seen, and supported, with comprehensive attendance, engagement, and progress information always available to commissioning organisations. The immediate gap after exclusion The most straightforward use of online AP is when a pupil needs education immediately, and a local physical placement is not yet available. Following a permanent exclusion, suitable full-time education must be arranged from the sixth school day, and schools can also need provision during longer suspensions. Considerable work occurs between an exclusion and a longer-term arrangement, particularly where a pupil’s needs, SEND profile, or circumstances limit local options. Crucially, an interim step shouldn’t mean a young person becomes disconnected from their local area, community, and place. Education cannot be put on hold during this transition. A live online AP programme provides teaching immediately, allowing the pupil to follow a structured timetable while remaining anchored to their home community while the school and local authority determine the next steps. Live teaching is key because a disengaged pupil needs a teacher, a timetable, feedback, and routine to re-establish a connection with learning. Academy21’s DfE-accredited online AP can enrol pupils within 48 hours and provide live, teacher-led lessons in small classes. Our sixth-day programme begins as an interim placement – keeping students grounded in their local context – and can continue if a pupil needs longer-term provision. When schools face an immediate gap, speed matters, and education must start without displacing young people from their local community while wider decisions are made. What schools should look for in online AP The growth of online AP makes quality assurance particularly important, especially because the model removes some of the visible features that schools traditionally associate with an educational setting. The DfE introduced its accreditation scheme for online education providers following rapid growth in the sector, with standards covering education and safeguarding and an Ofsted inspection process for accredited providers. The government’s current SEND consultation has also asked whether stronger arrangements are needed around quality, responsibilities and oversight for children receiving provision from accredited online providers. For a commissioning school, accreditation is an important starting point, but the operational questions matter just as much. Schools should be able to establish who teaches the pupil, how attendance and engagement are monitored, how SEND needs are accommodated, how safeguarding responsibilities are divided, what curriculum and qualifications are available, and how the provider communicates. The quality of the teaching matters particularly for pupils who have already experienced disruption. An online AP placement should still involve teachers who know their pupils, a coherent curriculum, assessment and feedback, and regular communication with the organisation responsible for the pupil. Moving beyond the quick fix As online AP takes a more permanent, recognised place in the system, it’s not just plugging an emergency gap, but changing how we think about inclusion altogether by opening up new possibilities. When a student who can’t cope with a traditional classroom can still log on, see a teacher, and study proper GCSEs from a safe space, technology stops being just a workaround and becomes a true enabler of high-quality education and pastoral and wellbeing support. The DfE’s push for accreditation and better oversight is a step in the right direction to clean up the sector. But standards and policy documents are only half the battle. The real value of online AP is that it gives schools a flexible, practical safety net – making sure no child’s education is written off just because of unfortunate circumstances.