Pupil absence will remain high until the “Covid generation” leaves secondary school, researchers have warned.
The “shock” caused by policies implemented in response to the pandemic in 2020 could take “seven years to erode”, according to the research published today.
The findings come after government figures revealed that absence rates remained stubbornly high in the 2023-24 academic year, despite a drive by the previous government to bring attendance back to pre-pandemic levels.
The research, published in a paper by the London School of Economics and funded by the Nuffield Foundation, estimates that a 10 per cent increase in absence created by pandemic policies in 2020 persisted as a 6.5 per cent increase in absence the following year.
The impact of Covid policy on pupil absence
Researchers said their assessment of the impact of the Covid “policy shock” meant it would take seven years before absence reduced closer to pre-pandemic levels.
The report also claims that a variation in Covid restrictions on movement in England during the pandemic, via the regional tier system - whereby different regions had different restrictions based on how fast the virus was spreading - “had large unintended consequences” for pupil absence both at the time and afterwards.
Schools were forced to move to remote learning for most pupils for parts of 2020 and 2021, and localised restrictions, such as the “tier” system, also created a variation in policy across the country.
While schools were not included in the tiered restrictions brought in after the end of the full nationwide lockdown in June 2020, the report concludes that the effect of the pandemic on subsequent pupil absences and learning loss “is not only attributable to compulsory school closures”.
The LSE report says that it is “likely a shift in family attitudes to attendance during the autumn term of 2020, induced by local public health policies and social and work restrictions of the time, that has persisted post-pandemic”.
LSE defined the “Covid generation” as those who began secondary school during the pandemic and are set to finish Year 13 in 2027.
‘Monumental effort’ needed to fix attendance
A report by Public First last year concluded that the pandemic and resulting lockdowns caused a “seismic shift in parental attitudes to school attendance that is going to take a monumental, multi-service effort to change”.
Today’s LSE report claims that the more restrictive tier policies “negatively affected those already facing hardships due to socioeconomic deprivation”, with researchers finding that the effects of the tier two or three restrictions, which included tighter restrictions on social interactions, on school attendance “were greater for pupils who live in disadvantaged areas”.
The report highlights the need for “preventative school-wide efforts and more intensive and targeted initiatives that identify and support chronically absent pupils”.
However, researchers acknowledge that “this is much more difficult to achieve...at a time when school budgets continue to be squeezed”.
The Department for Education has been contacted for comment.
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