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Alternative ProvisionEverything included: £4.25 per pupil/year before volume discounts of 5% to 20%, £250 minimum/year, excluding VAT

Run the provision day to day, and show each commissioning school what happened.

A workspace for alternative provision providers. Take referrals through your own link, plan the week and take session registers, record check-ins and progress from a baseline, sign off review packs, share placements with commissioning schools and local authorities on your terms, and keep risk, compliance, staff checks and billing in the same place.

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Five steps
From enquiry and triage to a confirmed placement, each step with an owner and a due date
Unmarked is not absent
A missing session mark stays a gap to follow up, and is never counted as an absence
Kept back
Safeguarding records, medical records, EHCP documents and internal notes are never shared with commissioners
Take referrals through your own branded link, work each one through triage, assessment and visits, and confirm the placement without typing the pupil in again.

Built for AP providers

The daily work, the evidence and the paperwork around each placement

Alternative provision settings get their own menu in Student Radar, organised the way a provision runs: Today, Attendance, Referrals, Pupils, Progress, Commissioning Schools and Compliance. Safeguarding, health and behaviour records use the same tools as mainstream schools.

Referrals and admissions

Take referrals in, decide on them carefully and turn an accepted referral into a pupil and a placement.

  • Branded referral form with no account needed by the referrer
  • Five-step pipeline with owners, due dates and a decision log
  • Proposals the referrer accepts or declines online
  • Your own stages and staff forms, saved as versions

Daily operations

Start the day from one view, plan the week once and keep a register for each session.

  • Today view of who is in, absent or not yet marked
  • Usual-week rota templates laid down in one step
  • Warnings for lone working, ratios and double bookings
  • Session registers with reasons and history

Attendance evidence

Keep what was booked, what was recorded and what is still missing apart, then export the evidence.

  • Booked sessions, participation and coverage shown separately
  • Persistent absence below 90% and severe absence below 50%
  • Rates by pupil and by commissioning school
  • CSV and branded PDF evidence exports

Progress and review

Record progress from where each young person started, and prepare review packs from the records.

  • Daily check-ins with two to six measures you choose
  • Progress Drivers across eight default areas, from a baseline
  • Weekly, monthly, termly, placement and final review packs
  • Staff review followed by leader sign-off

Commissioning schools and local authorities

Keep each placement with the school that commissioned it, and decide exactly who can see what.

  • Placements grouped by commissioning school
  • Named access for one person and one pupil
  • Purpose, legal basis and end date recorded
  • Renew, suspend or withdraw access with a reason

Billing

Draft invoices from the rates you agreed and the sessions you recorded.

  • Hourly rate, funder and purchase order per placement
  • Charge attended hours or scheduled hours
  • VAT, credit notes and overdue tracking
  • QuickBooks and Xero CSV exports

Safety, compliance and staff checks

Keep the records an inspector, local authority or commissioning school may ask to see.

  • Pupil risk assessments with likelihood and severity scoring
  • Twenty-three provider duties for England, each with evidence and an owner
  • Single Central Record with fifteen checks and expiry warnings
  • Independent school registration review prompt

Set up for your provision

Use your own words, your own roles and the tools you already need from the rest of Student Radar.

  • Your own words for pupil, group, commissioning school and Provision Lead
  • Pupil numbers shown against the cap on your licence
  • Roles from Leader to Office, with finance access granted separately
  • Shared safeguarding, health and behaviour tools

Workflows

Open the part of the placement you need next

Follow a placement from the first enquiry through daily delivery, progress, review, sharing and billing.

How the workflows connect

One placement record, from referral to final report

What you learn at referral carries into the rota, registers, check-ins, review packs and invoices, so the team is not copying the same details between spreadsheets.

The referral becomes the placement

Confirming a placement creates the pupil and the placement from the referral, and sessions from the agreed placement plan appear on the rota ready to be staffed.

Gaps stay visible

Unrecorded sessions, missing evidence and checks still to do are shown as gaps with an owner, rather than disappearing inside an average.

Sharing is deliberate

Nothing reaches a commissioner until a named person accepts access, and you choose whether they also see attendance, published review summaries and timetable windows.

Judgement stays with your team

Rota warnings, compliance prompts and progress changes support decisions. Leaders sign off risk assessments and review packs, and Student Radar does not decide for them.

Related help guides

See how to carry out these tasks in Student Radar, with step-by-step product help for the people using them.

The value of a connected school

A placement touches more than the timetable.

Provider staff use the same safeguarding and health tools as mainstream schools, and commissioning schools on Student Radar have their own side of the placement.

Alternative Provision

Context for the next step

Student Radar

Follow a connection to see what it makes possible

Relevant context, with access set by each staff member’s role and responsibilities. Staff decide the response.

  1. Safeguarding + Alternative Provision

    Raise a concern from the pupil you are working with

    Provider staff can raise a concern and authorised DSLs work it on the DSL Action Board, with the chronology and record transfer in the same place. Safeguarding records are never shared through commissioner access.

    Explore safeguarding

  2. Health + Alternative Provision

    Check medical needs before an off-site session

    Authorised staff can check medical needs, medications and healthcare plans for the young people in the provision before a session, and record first aid when something happens.

    Explore health

  3. Commissioning school + Alternative Provision

    See the placement from the commissioning school’s side

    Schools that commission placements keep a provider register with due-diligence checks, placement checks before, during and after the placement, and an evidence pack they can export.

    Explore commissioning school

Ready to see Alternative Provision in action?

Explore the Demo School, or request time to focus on the Alternative Provision workflows that matter to your team.

Request a demoWatch a product example