The Department for Education has this morning named the seven multi-academy trusts set to join its attendance drive aimed at tackling pupil absence from next month.
It added it will expand its attendance mentors programme to four other areas
But heads’ leaders have said these measures only “scratch the surface” and the attendance drive will need more investment if the government is “serious” about solving the problem.
The expansion of the hubs programme follows a pilot project run by Northern Education Trust, which involved around 60 schools working together to tackle absence.
Tes revealed earlier this year that up to 10 multi-academy trusts were lined up to establish attendance hubs following the pilot.
Under the programme, a lead school shares its approaches on attendance with a network of schools that have similar cohorts and challenges.
The nine new attendance hub leads (schools) will support up to 600 primary, secondary and alternative provision schools in England, and will start supporting other schools from June, the DfE said.
The DfE said the hub programme had been expanded following the success of the pilot, although it told Tes that an independent evaluation had not been carried out.
It added the programme’s findings would be used to determine if it should be rolled out to other areas of the country.
The first attendance hub was established by Rob Tarn, CEO of Northern Education Trust and member of the Attendance Action Alliance, to provide other schools with techniques, resources and advice on how to improve attendance, as trialled in the trust’s North Shore Academy.
Last year, the national absence rate in schools was 9 per cent - whereas in North Shore Academy, it was 8.2 per cent, according to the DfE.
Attendance mentor programme expanded
The DfE also announced the expansion of the attendance mentors programme to 1,665 persistently and severely absent children and their families across Knowsley, Doncaster, Stoke-on-Trent and Salford to understand and overcome the barriers to attendance and support them back into school.
Persistently absent pupils are those who have missed more than 10 per cent of school sessions, while those who are severely absent have missed more than 50 per cent of sessions.
More than 50 per cent of secondary students were persistently absent - classed as missing 10 per cent or more of classroom sessions - in 2020-21.
The attendance mentors programme rollout is being delivered by Barnardo’s, after running a pilot in Middlesbrough.
The DfE said it is also opening a call for evidence on pupils missing education, classified as those neither on a school roll nor being suitably home-educated.
The Commons Education Select Committee also launched an inquiry into persistent absence this year.
Schools minister Nick Gibb said that while pupil attendance “is continuing to recover, the pandemic has still had a real impact on pupil absence in schools”.
“That is why we’re expanding some of our most important attendance measures today, including the attendance hubs and mentoring programmes, to ensure children have the best chance of receiving a high-quality education.”
Measures ‘barely scratch surface’ of problem
Julie McCulloch, director of policy at the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “Expanding attendance hubs and mentors may be helpful, but this barely scratches the surface of this problem.”
Ms McCulloch added that the union thinks high absence is being “driven largely by a rising tide of mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety, which are exacerbated by the cost-of-living crisis”.
“The government needs to provide solutions that address the root causes of absence,” she said. “As ever, this is likely to take investment in terms of staffing and specialist mental health support, and the government’s record on providing the necessary resources is sorely lacking.”
Meanwhile, James Bowen, assistant general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union, said: “If the government is truly committed to tackling this issue, it needs to invest more widely in specialist teams which work directly with children and families at a local level.”
He added that the drive ”doesn’t make up for the cuts to education welfare services we’ve seen local authorities having to deal with since 2010”.
“If the government is serious about solving this issue it will need to match this ambition with the investment needed.”
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