Minister warns parents on school attendance ahead of new term
As children return for the new term this week, the education secretary has warned parents of the dangers of poor attendance at the start of the school year. It comes as data first seen by the BBC shows that more than half of pupils who missed some of the first week went on to become persistently absent
in 2024, relative to just 14% of students who attended the first weeks. Schools and parents should double down
to get children into classrooms by the 2025 term, according to Bridget Phillipson. "What we hear is that children who miss a day or two in the first two weeks of school are more likely to be persistently absent.
she continued, as well as the implications that may have on their lives. Parents must band together with schools and government to get their childrenThey're more likely not to be going to school on a regular basis,
off to a good start,Phillipson said.
According to statistics, 18% of pupils were progressively absent in the 2024-25 school year. This was down from a peak of 23% in 2021-22, but much higher than the pre-Covid average of about 11%. Schools have always struggled with attendance, but they became much worse after the pandemic in 2020, and schools have closed to most students during national lockdowns. Attendance has increased since Covid, but it remains a bigger issue than ever before Covid. According to the Department of Education (DfE), the first week of the 2024-25 school year showed that the start of term was critical
for combating persistent absence. Labour's Schools Bill, according to Conservatives, had
outside of the school gates," according to a head teacher's union, to raise attendance.driven up standards for decades. More help was needed
In the two years after Covid, Karl Stewart, the head teacher at Shaftesbury Junior School in Leicester, said his school's attendance rates were higher than average, but there was a definite decrease
in the two decades after Covie.
the narrator said. To reduce absentee rates, the school has incentives such as awards and class competitions, and Mr Stewart said that attendance has more or less returned to pre-Covid levels.I get why. Any of those incidents weren't necessarily parents who did not want to send them in. They were either having Covid or other items on hand and saying, 'We'll just keep them off now to be safe,'
The results are just betterwhen we have the children in every day,
he said.If you're here, it gives your instructor more time for you to notice you, for us to see all the positive behaviour [and] that really hard work, which is what we want. "However, some parents also took their children on unauthorised term-time holidays in order to get the most of cheaper rates. Some, he said, had taken children for medical care abroad to avoid NHS waiting lists.
Although attendance rose last year, education Secretary Ed Miliband said that absentee rates
Every day of school missed is a day taken from a child's future,remain stubbornly high, putting a whole generation of young people in danger.
Phillipson said.We need schools and parents to double down on the enthusiasm, the passion, and the tenacity that has already improved the life chances of millions of children as the new term begins,
an important backstop within the framework.says the president. Parents can be fined up to £80 if their child misses five days of school without authorization. In England, a record number of unauthorised family holidays were issued last year. Fines, according to Phillipson, remained
she said. However, the education secretary reiterated that schools were encouraged to take aIt's not just about our own children, but it has an effect on the whole class,
support-firstapproach and collaborate with parents when there were other issues impacting a pupil's attendance.
800 schools were supposed to be aided by regional school improvement teams, according to the DfE, through attendance and behaviour hubs. These hubs are made up of 90 outstanding schools that will help students in need of assistance with education reforming struggling schools by hosting training sessions, activities, and open days. It revealed that it had selected the first 21 schools that would lead the program. However, Pepe Di'Iasio, the Association of School and College Leaders' general secretary, said that attendance hubs were not a silver bullet
and that a more strategic approach
was
he said.I think the government has worked really hard to raise attendance, and it continues to be a top priority for them,
He said that school leaders wanted quicker access to services for those students and specialist teachers in schools,So many of the challenges [school leaders] are facing come from outside the classroom walls - children with high levels of anxiety and mental disorders.
schools, but students also neededgreat role models
Behaviour and attendance are two of the most significant challenges facing schools today,in the community through youth clubs and volunteer organizations.
There must be concrete consequences for bad conduct not only to shield the students learning from attending, but also to recognize when mainstream education isn't the right place for those causing disruption.shadow education secretary Laura Trott said, and it's about time the government intervened.
Additional reporting by Nathan Standley
