Department for Education · Explore Education Statistics: absence, SEN, attainment, apprenticeships, NEET, class sizes
Pupils with an education, health and care plan
538,547pupils
Pupils with an education, health and care plan was 538,547 pupils in 2025/26 academic year, up 11.6% (55,907) from 482,640 in 2024/25 academic year.
▲ 11.6% · +55,907 against 2024/25 academic year (previous period)
- Department for Education count
- 2025/26 academic year
- published 4 August 2026
- 019df85e-ab00-7458-a4ff-b381997776cb
- row “Hospital school flag=Total; Phase type of school=Total; Pupil SEN provision=Education, health and care plan; School type (detailed)=Total”
- column “Headcount of pupils”
- cell value 538547
2025/26 academic year is the highest figure in the published series: 538,547. Rule: highest of the 11 periods published here (2015/16 academic year to 2025/26 academic year).
The latest year is the largest rise in the published series: up 55,907 from 2024/25 academic year to 2025/26 academic year. Rule: largest year-on-year increase across the 10 year-on-year changes the series supports.
2015/16 academic year to 2025/26 academic year
What this measures
The number of pupils in all schools in England with an education, health and care plan at the January school census.
What this doesn’t measure
Children with a plan who are not in school, or the cost of provision.
Important caveat
Figures come from the January school census and cover state-funded schools in England unless the metric says otherwise. A pupil enrolled at more than one school in a year can be counted at each. Absence measures use possible sessions, so a school's timetable affects them; the persistent absence threshold was changed to 10% of sessions from 2015/16 and earlier years are on the old basis.
Revision history
No period of this series has been revised since it was first ingested here. Revisions are recorded automatically when a later release publishes a different figure for the same period.
Source
- Publisher
- Department for Education
- Publication
- Explore Education Statistics: absence, SEN, attainment, apprenticeships, NEET, class sizes
- Release
- Explore Education Statistics: releases to August 2026, published 4 August 2026
- Source file
- dfe_education.json
- File SHA-256
- 301a1eda429205c90247cc4efad5564351b549d7772715a628d8459e360d8b47
- Retrieved
- 3 September 2026
- Sheet
- sen
- Table
- 019df85e-ab00-7458-a4ff-b381997776cb
- Row
- Hospital school flag=Total; Phase type of school=Total; Pupil SEN provision=Education, health and care plan; School type (detailed)=Total
- Column
- Headcount of pupils
- Cell value
- 538547
- Geography
- E92000001
- Unit
- pupils
- API
- /api/metrics/ehcp_pupils · /series · /vintages
Government periods
Change during each government, from the level inherited to the last complete period before it left office. Describes the period; does not attribute cause.
| Labour 2024– | 389,1712022/23 academic year | 538,5472025/26 academic year | ↑ 38.4% |
| Conservative 2019–2024 | 271,1652018/19 academic year | 389,1712022/23 academic year | ↑ 43.5% |
| Conservative 2017–2019 | 236,8062015/16 academic year | 271,1652018/19 academic year | ↑ 14.5% |
- Release
- Explore Education Statistics: releases to August 2026 · publication page
- Last updated
- 4 August 2026
- Next release expected
- Not yet announced (estimated from the usual cadence)