Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson will announce a roadmap for every school to ramp up efforts to support pupils back to class amid a third of schools are still failing to improve
Schools will be set individual minimum attendance targets under plans to recover lost learning during the pandemic.
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson will today announce a roadmap for every school to ramp up efforts to support pupils back to class.
A third of schools are still failing to improve their attendance stats. From this month, every school will be issued with AI-powered minimum attendance improvement targets to ensure children are in school and ready to achieve.
The attendance baseline improvement expectation (ABIE) will be based on schools’ circumstances – including location, pupil needs and deprivation.
Schools will then be measured against schools of a similar demographic to them. Progress against the targets will not be used for formal accountability purposes. Ofsted does not have access to the targets, which will not be published.
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Instead, performance will be used to inform where support is needed, including through Regional improvement for standards and excellence (RISE) teams. It comes as 36 new Attendance and Behaviour Hubs are launched today, which will offer direct one-to-one support to pupils.
But teaching unions did not welcome the plans and raised concerns about further targets putting pressure on already struggling schools.
Ms Phillipson said: “We can only deliver opportunity for children in our country if they’re in school, achieving and thriving. That’s why I want every school to play its part in getting attendance back to – and beyond – pre-pandemic levels.
“By working jointly with schools to set individual targets, we’re tackling variation head-on. Our best schools already have a brilliant approach to attendance, and now we’re driving that focus everywhere so that all children are supported to attend school and learn.”
Before the pandemic, the overall absence rate was 4.7%. This jumped to 7.6% in 2021/22. The number of kids who are persistently absent– those who miss more than 10% of school days – has nearly doubled since the pandemic.
Labour has overseen improvements, with 5.3 million more days in school and 140,000 fewer persistently absent pupils last year, but has pledged a return to pre-pandemic levels.
Paul Whiteman, general secretary at school leaders’ union NAHT, said: “The reality is that schools are already working tirelessly to improve attendance, with many going way above and beyond what should be expected of schools every single day.
“The government issuing them with yet more targets will not help them with that work and is the wrong way to go. Instead of issuing targets from Whitehall, the government’s focus should be on providing the practical resources and support that genuinely make a difference – as well as investing in community services providing vital help for families with challenges in their lives which impact their children’s school attendance.”
Pepe Di’Iasio, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “We would urge the government to understand the realities in schools rather than issuing yet more diktats dreamt up in Whitehall.
“Schools already move heaven and earth to ensure that all their pupils attend regularly, but many of the factors that contribute to absence are beyond their direct control. Setting them individual targets doesn’t resolve those issues, but it does pile yet more pressure on school leaders and staff who are already under great strain.”
He added: “It would be far more effective for the government to ensure that every school has access to dedicated school attendance officers to work with families to understand the barriers to attendance and identify the support required to get children back into the classroom.
“Schools often have to fight this battle on their own despite having severely constrained budgets, staffing shortages, and amid all the other expectations pouring down on them. A new improvement target will create another burden without actually solving the issue it is supposed to address.”