DfE vow to crack down on poor pupil attendance

The Education Secretary is to introduce new “expert” attendance advisers with decades of first-hand experience to reduce pupil absence.

They will work with local authorities and multi-academy trusts to help “re-engage” persistently absent pupils.

The Department has also identified schools with some of the greatest decreases in absence rates over a five-year period prior to the pandemic, who will share their approach with other schools in a variety of ways over the coming weeks and months, to help reduce high absence rates.

Schools Minister Robin Walker said in a visit to one of these ‘example’ schools yesterday:

“It has been fantastic to see how through a combination of data, proactivity and a focus on children’s wellbeing, a school like the London Academy has driven up attendance and reduced persistent absence. Every lesson that we can prevent a child from missing is another building block to their life chances, development and wellbeing.

“My department is channelling all its efforts to provide support and guidance to help schools, local authorities and multi-academy trusts take action to increase attendance, and I ask that everyone working with children does everything in their power to help break down any barriers to them attending school.

“I recognise that covid is still with us and causing some unavoidable absence – but this is all the more reason that we must all take action to address every avoidable reason for a child not being in school.”

Responding to the Children’s Commissioner’s Big Ask survey, children said they “like school” and they “realised how sitting in front of the computer is no proxy for being with a teacher”.