An over-reliance on threatening parents with punitive fines will not solve the attendance crisis, according to a report that calls on ministers to create a “new era of inclusion and belonging” in the school system.
The report from Child of the North and the Centre for Young Lives, a think tank set up by former children’s commissioner Anne Longfield, sets out “an evidence-based plan” to tackle a 57 per cent surge in school absence in the last 10 years.
It calls for enhancing early intervention and for schools to establish early screening methods to identify at-risk pupils and offer mentoring and support before attendance issues escalate.
Early identification of absence risk factors
The report also recommends that both central and local government support schools to implement early identification of students at risk of persistent absence, focusing on those from disadvantaged backgrounds, children with special educational needs and those from high-deprivation areas.
The report warns that children in the North of England are more likely to be absent from school, with rates of unauthorised absence 34 per cent higher than in the South. On average, one in 10 children in the North were persistently absent for unauthorised reasons.
It also highlights that within local areas there can be variable school attendance rates. Analysis for the report reveals large discrepancies in school attendance across Bradford, where one locality showed an unauthorised absence rate over 22 times greater than the locality with the lowest rate. In some areas, 80 per cent of the total unauthorised absences were attributable to about 12 per cent of pupils.
The report also promotes several “creative and inspirational programmes being implemented across the North for boosting attendance”.
This includes Wirral Council’s use of “telepresence robots” that allow children to access their education remotely. This involves a robot sitting in the young person’s seat in class, and they access a live stream of the lesson via an electronic tablet in a safe space (such as at home or an intervention room within school).
The pilot, in seven Wirral schools over this summer term, resulted in an average 21 per cent increase in attendance. The robots are used to help absent pupils connect with their education and to reintegrate them back into the classroom.
Complex reasons for persistent absence
The report says the reasons for children being absent from school are complex, often comprising a multitude of risk factors, including wider issues of inequality and deprivation, marginalisation, SEND, mental health challenges, tooth decay, and family and parental factors.
It warns that the current national approach to tackling school absence is “far too punitive and uniform”. It reports headteachers saying that strategies used before the Covid pandemic to tackle school absence are no longer as effective as they were before 2020.
Instead, it says that the government - through frameworks such as Ofsted - should reward schools that promote inclusive environments that emphasise relational approaches, helping pupils feel connected, valued and safe.
Ms Longfield said the reasons children miss school are often complex and there is no silver-bullet solution. “The one-size-fits-all and often punitive approach that previous governments have taken to tackle absence needs to be consigned to the past. Simply, threatening parents with fines is not working for many families and not reducing severe absence rates,” she added.
“The crucial message this report puts forward is the need to intervene early and to build a sense of belonging and inclusion in schools. Investing early in supporting children at risk of disengagement from education is the best way of preventing problems further down the line and no child should ever think that school isn’t for them.”
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