Education minister Baroness Jacqui Smith is open to the idea of “targets” to reduce absenteeism in schools, she told the Lords today.
In response to a question about placing targets on persistent and severe absence, Baroness Smith said that “whether or not targets are the right approach, I am open to that”.
Baroness Smith is a House of Lords peer covering higher education, further education and skills for the Department for Education.
Her comments come after children’s commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza last year called for the government to benchmark schools on attendance, so governors can “hold schools to account and challenge them”.
Severe absence in schools
Severe absence rates doubled last year compared with pre-pandemic levels, according to government data published this month.
Persistent absence is defined as missing 10 per cent or more of sessions, whereas severe absence is missing at least half of possible school sessions.
Baroness Smith added that the government is working “extremely hard with a range of policies” to reduce absence, including breakfast clubs, which the DfE has previously said could cut ”half a million days of absence”.
She said that she was “determined to build on” the data and analysis work started by Baroness Barran, an education minister under the former Conservative government.
When asked about findings that a third of parents report being more “relaxed” about attendance after the pandemic, Baroness Smith agreed it was “concerning”.
“My assessment is that it is concerning that parents, for whatever reason...are becoming relaxed about their children’s attendance at school,” she said, adding that lower attendance levels could be linked to the pandemic.
She added: “Days missed, of course, can add up quickly, and we know that there’s a link between absence and attainment.
“That is a message that we need to give loud and clear to parents who, in being relaxed about their children’s attendance at school, are fundamentally damaging their future.”
Baroness Smith also referred to research by the children’s commissioner’s office which showed that only 5 per cent of pupils who were severely absent in both Years 10 and 11 - and just 36 per cent who were persistently absent - achieved at least five GCSEs.
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