Hundreds of children homeschooled in Wigan

The figures come as the Government has announced new plans to better protect homeschooled children.

Data from the Department for Education shows around 570 children were being taught at home in Wigan as of the latest school term.

Philosophical reasons was the most common reason for homeschooling in the area, accounting for 270 children.

This was followed by mental health reasons, with around 160 children.

There is nothing in the Government's data to suggest these children are at risk.

However, House of Commons leader Lucy Powell said the Government will be “imminently” announcing details of “stronger safeguards for children being taken into home education” after outrage over the death of Sara Sharif, who was taught at home.

The father and stepmother of the 10-year-old, who was taken out of school to be educated at home, were found guilty of her murder earlier this week.

Sara was beaten to death four years after taxi driver Urfan Sharif, 42, was awarded custody, despite accusations of abuse against him, jurors heard.

Maria Neophytou, acting chief executive of the NSPCC, said it was a “absolutely shocking case” raising “crucial questions” about child protection.

Number 10 has highlighted plans to introduce a child identifier, which will be like an NHS number, with a requirement for every council to have multi-agency child safeguarding teams.

It also outlined plans to introduce a duty for parents to have local authority consent to home-school their children, adding more detail would be set out in upcoming legislation.

This would be for specific cases where a “child is subject to a child protection plan,” the spokesman said.

The Children's Commissioner, Dame Rachel De Souza, also called for action to prevent children at risk of abuse from being homeschooled.

She told BBC Newsnight it was “madness” that children who were at risk of abuse at home should be taken out of school, which should act as a “safeguard”.

She said proper data sharing between schools and councils could also prevent harm.

Data collection on home schooling has improved in recent years, meaning previous years' data may not be directly comparable for Wigan.

Available figures suggest at least 430 local children were homeschooled at the same point in the previous academic year.

The figures also show there were 111,700 children homeschooled across England this autumn term, which the DfE says may be a significant increase from an estimated 92,000 a year earlier.