Inner city children skipping school

Sunday, 31 July 2005 12:00 AM

Thousands of pupils in England's inner city schools skip classes for up to two weeks every year, new government-sponsored research finds.

A three-year study by the National Foundation for Educational Research, covering more than 100,000 pupils, revealed that hundreds of schoolchildren were truant for the equivalent of a whole term or more.

The study involved pupils from 454 secondary schools in deprived areas targeted for extra government assistance, such as inner London, Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester.

Those playing truant over lengthy periods were more likely to be drawn into crime and anti-social behaviour, while persistent truants were also more susceptible to unemployment as adults, the foundation's report says.

Of those pupils questioned, 65 per cent had no recorded periods of "unauthorised absence".

But more than 1,000 pupils played truant for the equivalent of half a term every year and more than 1,100 fines had been imposed on parents for failing to send their children to school since September 2004, the study finds.

Researchers claim being absent from school for more than five weeks a year can reduce a pupil's chances of attaining one good GCSE at grade C or above by 30 per cent, with boys more likely to suffer the effects of non-attendance more than girls.

"This might suggest that the impact of poor attendance might be greater for lower attaining pupils than for higher attainers," said the report.

It added: "Certainly, there is already an indication that poor attendance has a more significant impact on boys than on girls."

Shadow education secretary David Cameron said the figures came as no surprise, insisting that despite having spent more than £800 million on truancy initiatives since 1997, "this government has failed to get any real grip on the problem".

"They claim to take truancy seriously, but as yet they have very little to show for it. It is doubly worrying to see these figures are focused particularly on deprived areas," he said.

"This government has a duty to ensure that these already disadvantaged children are not making their situation worse by being able to skip school whenever they feel like it."

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