Mr Benson says the problem is not limited to African boys

We're certainly aware of the problem. Schools in areas like mine have a lot of black African boys.

But it's not just a problem for them, it's a problem for any area which has a transient population.

Sometimes individual children are lost in the system

We have quite a large number of parents or families who apparently go missing but actually just move on and don't know that they have to inform anyone.

The problem is that the system has its flaws.

We have the unique ID number which should help us track children and follow them, but often that doesn't seem to be the case.

Often with black African boys, their name changes from one group of carers to the other. Sometimes individual children are lost in the system.

School pupils 'vanishing'

If a child comes to this school, we take on trust what the parents tell us that child's name is.

We ask for some formal identification but often we're dealing with a large refugee population. Obviously if you've fled your country, you don't always have paperwork with you.

One difference of culture with African families is a system where what are called 'relatives' take responsibility for a child, when they're not biologically related.

That's considered by a lot of African cultures to be quite normal.

Man power

A lot more resources could be put into enabling the authorities to have the manpower to do the investigations that need to be done.

For example, if a child leaves my school we normally get a request for information from a school in another area.

But if nothing like that happens, all the authorities can do is conduct a search of the local authorities to see if the child has turned up.

I would imagine that the vast majority of those children are actually safely ensconced in school somewhere

It could be the child is quite happily working in another school, but under the name of another carer.

I would imagine the vast majority of those children are actually safely ensconced in school somewhere.

The issue is that we don't know.

Most adult carers are loving and supporting and want what is best for the children but there are bad eggs in every basket.

(The problem) runs right through the primary sector.