Schools should be given new guidance on how to engage with parents to help tackle “a national persistent truancy crisis”, a social mobility expert has said.
MPs have also been warned that some families have “lost their belief that attending school regularly is necessary” for their children since the pandemic.
Evidence submitted to a new parliamentary inquiry calls for schools to be given new guidance to engage with parents on attendance and to be encouraged to develop parent engagement plans.
The document, written by Lee Elliot Major, professor of social mobility at the University of Exeter, and Andy Eyles from University College London also suggests that schools sending more personalised text messages to parents of absent pupils was a “potential low-cost approach for improved school attendance”.
A similar recommendation was made by the Education Endowment Foundation last year.
The evidence has been submitted to the Commons Education Select Committee, which is holding an inquiry into persistent absence and support for disadvantaged pupils.
A pupil is classed as being persistently absent if they miss more than 10 per cent of sessions.
MPs launched the inquiry after data showed persistent absence doubled during the pandemic.
According to Professor Elliot Major and Mr Eyles, the use of more personalised messages and texts to parents by school staff could be an effective way of improving attendance “once deeper relationships have been developed” between schools and families.
Their submission says: ”Schools remain the trusted anchor organisations in local communities. Parent engagement plans would encourage schools to better understand their parents and children, for example through deep listening exercises.
“This would be a win-win strategy for teachers as children would be better prepared to learn in classrooms.”
‘Potential game changer’
Professor Elliot Major said: “Persistent absenteeism is a national crisis and threatens to damage the education prospects of a whole generation of children.
“The reasons why so many children have not returned to school are varied and complex, but most troubling of all, some families appear to have lost their belief that attending school regularly is necessary for their children.
“I’m convinced that developing school-parent engagement plans would be a potential game-changer encouraging more children to attend school and enabling them to be better prepared to learn in classrooms.”
A research programme aimed at developing evidence-informed approaches for schools to engage with parents might help improve relationships with disengaged families and improve attendance, the submission added.
It warns that 40 per cent of secondary pupils in England who qualified for free school meals were persistently absent during the 2021-22 autumn term - a rise from the pre-pandemic levels.
“The post-pandemic period has seen large rises in absence with persistent absence among the least advantaged reaching alarming levels,” the researchers said.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said any strategies to improve attendance must be carefully considered, “particularly the financial cost to schools and the impact on staff workload”.
But this is not a problem schools can solve on their own, he said, adding that schools require the support of parents, local authorities and investment from central government.
Mr Barton said: “Persistent absence from school harms both academic attainment and emotional development, and we support efforts to tackle this problem.
“School leaders already work very hard to maintain high rates of attendance, as it is so crucial to getting good outcomes, but face a number of challenges in doing so.
“The impact of the pandemic, which reduced engagement with learning and broke down routines, is still being felt. Persistently absent pupils often have mental health issues, which may have been exacerbated by the pandemic.”
