Official figures for the autumn term (DfE, 2024) show that persistent absence has improved year-on-year, but is still running at 20.1%.
However, at secondary level it is even higher, at 24.6% – meaning that a quarter of students missed 10% or more of their school sessions during the autumn term.
The figures are even worse for students on free schools meals (FSMs) with one third (33%) being persistently absent during autumn term.
Overall, attendance levels from September to December hit 93.2%, dropping to 91.6% for secondary schools and 89.6% for students on free schools meals (FSMs).
One bright point is that figures for the first week of January show marginal improvements of 0.2% on the average absence rates recorded during the autumn term.
Persistent absence has been an on-going challenge for schools, especially at secondary level, since the Covid-19 pandemic.
The government has announced a number of initiatives to try and tackle the problem, including expanding both its Attendance Hubs and its mentoring programme.
Attendance Hubs provide tailored support to pupils and their families to help reduce absence from school. They are run by schools with excellent track records in boosting attendance. The DfE recently unveiled plans to expand the number of hubs in operation to 32.
The hubs use a range of tactics to engage with pupils and their families, including breakfast clubs and extra-curricular activities, as well as undertaking analysis of attendance data to identify trends and solutions.
Meanwhile, the DfE’s mentoring programme has been given £15m over three years to offer “intensive support” to more than 10,000 persistent or severely absent pupils. Up until now it has been operating in Middlesbrough, Doncaster, Knowsley, Salford, and Stoke on Trent. The project will expand to cover a further 10 areas from September 2024.
However, writing in SecEd earlier this term, Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and Colege Leaders, while welcoming these initiatives, said that investment in professionals “knocking on doors” is what was required.
Mr Barton writes: “The most effective solution to poor attendance is to have attendance officers knocking on doors and talking directly to families about why children are missing school, what barriers there are to attendance and how these can be solved.
“That is a service which is traditionally provided by local authorities. However, that service has been decimated over the past decade or so as a result of government cuts to local authority funding.”
Mr Barton acknowledges that this is an expensive solution, but compares this expense to the long-term “damage caused by persistent absence”
He adds: “The actual question for policy-makers is whether they have the political will to do the obvious thing.”
Responding to the latest figures this week, Paul Whiteman, general secretary at the National Association of Head Teachers, said they were “concerning” and echoed the call for more people to be employed to work with families.
He said: “The figures underline the need for the government to invest far more in tackling persistent absence and the reasons for it, which may include everything from issues at home, to poverty, mental ill-health and a failure to fund adequate support for many children with SEN.
“Schools alone do not have the time, resources or expertise to address what are sometimes deep-rooted social issues, yet vital services like children’s social care and mental health support have suffered cuts or failed to keep up with demand over the last decade.
Mr Whiteman said that while the Attendance Hubs and pilot mentoring programme were welcome, “large areas of the country do not benefit from these”.
He continued: “We need to see more boots on the ground, with visits to families to get to the bottom of issues with children’s attendance – but crucial local authority roles like education welfare officers have been decimated. Ministers need to go further and faster and look at the bigger picture if we are to make real headway in tackling this problem.”
- DfE: Week 2: Pupil attendance in schools, January 2024: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/pupil-attendance-in-schools/2024-week-2