A delay in adding persistent absence data to the government’s new dashboard is “disappointing” and should be a priority for the Department for Education, a former schools minister has said.
In September last year, the DfE launched a new attendance dashboard, with then education secretary Kit Malthouse saying it would help schools “tackle absence”.
The homepage of the tracker said that persistent absence data would be added “later in the autumn term”, but it is still not there after almost a month of the spring term.
Robin Walker, chair of the Commons Education Select Committee, told Tes it was “disappointing” that the department was “lagging behind with creating this helpful tool”.
He said that data on attendance “was seen as a priority” during his time as schools minister, “and it should still be”.
The cross-party education committee has recently launched an inquiry into the causes of persistent absence, as well as the solutions.
Mr Walker added: ”Before the government can plan anything, it will surely need to have reliable, accurate data readily available.”
The DfE said persistent absence was not included in the initial release of the dashboard because the metric is not valid over short time periods, but it added that now a full term of data was available, it was reviewing this.
Pressed on when persistent absence would be added to the dashboard, the DfE would not give a fixed date but said an update would be shared in due course.
A DfE spokesperson said: “We are determined to continue driving up attendance and are already offering targeted help for children who are regularly absent, and working with schools, trusts, governing bodies and local authorities to keep children in the classroom.”
Pupils are identified as persistent absentees if they miss 10 per cent or more of their possible sessions.
Data released last year showed this sort of absence doubled during the pandemic.
