The definition comes from the DfE's statutory guidance, Children missing education, updated on 8 September 2025. It is statutory for schools as well as local authorities, so academy trusts, governing bodies and proprietors must have regard to it.
CME includes children who are waiting for a school place, children who have been offered a place but haven't started, and children whose home education has been assessed as unsuitable. It does not include children who are registered at a school, however poor their attendance, or children who are home educated where the local authority hasn't yet assessed the education.
For a school, the practical duties are about the register. Schools must enter and delete names only as the 2024 pupil registration regulations allow, send the local authority a deletion return when a name comes off, and work with the local authority on joint reasonable enquiries before deleting a pupil whose whereabouts are unknown (attendance guidance, paragraphs 123 and 124, and 252 and 253).
KCSIE 2026 paragraph 221 links absence and CME to safeguarding: being absent from education can be a warning sign of neglect, exploitation and county lines. Annex A asks all staff to know the school's procedures for unauthorised absence and children missing education.
People often mix up CME with persistent absence. A persistently absent pupil is still on roll. The risk is that they become a child missing education if they drop off the register without anyone knowing where they are.