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Number of Children Regularly Missing School Surges by 12% to 1.6 Million After Lockdowns “Normalised” Truancy

by Toby Young
1 June 2023 5:46 PM

The number of schoolchildren regularly missing class has more than doubled since the pandemic, amid fears the lockdowns “normalised” truancy. The Mail has more.

Children’s Commissioner Rachel de Souza has issued a stark warning over a “crisis of attendance” as the number of ‘persistently absent’ children in England rose to 1.6 million.

The Department for Education’s ‘persistence absence’ rate measures the number of children missing at least 10% of school. Its latest figures show 22% of pupils were ‘persistently absent’ across the 2022/23 academic year – up from 10.9% prior to the Covid pandemic.

Ms. de Souza said the figures represent “the biggest problem facing us” as she shared fears that the pandemic, along with teacher strikes, has “normalised” truancy. The Children’s Commissioner also revealed that, of the total, a million children are missing school for reasons other than illness.

Seamus Murphy, chief executive of Turner Schools, blamed lockdown for “disrupting good habits” and slammed parents who have become “inclined to let children stay at home on a Friday”.

Secondary schools had the highest number of missing pupils, with more than a quarter persistently absent across the 2022/23 academic year.

A total of 27.1% of secondary schoolchildren missed at least 10% of classes, while the figure was 17.5% in primary schools.

Speaking on BBC’s Today programme, Ms. de Souza said: “We have to recognise just how big this problem is. I think we have got a crisis of attendance. I think we need to be far more systematic. Attendance needs to be everybody’s problem.

“If I was the Education Secretary I would be looking at the attendance figures first thing on a Monday morning and asking all my officials and making sure every professional was on it. This is the biggest problem facing us and it is becoming normalised.

“It costs time, it costs money, but it has got to be a national priority. Kids did so much for us during lockdown – they gave up their social lives and their time, we need to help get them back.”

Addressing whether teacher strikes had added to the issue, she added: “Absolutely. For the first time during lockdown, children suddenly realised schools could close and the strikes are just adding to that.

“The value of their (pupils) education is just not where it should be. I want the adults around the table sorting this out because it has got to be a national priority to get our children back to school.”

Worth reading in full.

Tags: LockdownsPersistent AbsenceSchoolsTruancy

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22 Comments
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RichardTechnik
RichardTechnik
1 year ago

The trees felled by more rural councils are mostly an obsession by safetyists with the miniscule risk of a tree falling in a storm and injuring someone. Those felled by city councils are more to do with the trees reducing the reach of the high band 5G essential for keeping track of people in the new ‘smart’ and 15 minute cities

53
0
Ron Smith
Ron Smith
1 year ago
Reply to  RichardTechnik

Yup that sounds like the real reason when you consider a mature tree goes through thousands of times more carbon than a newly planted tree. Not that carbon is a problem, of course.

39
0
varmint
varmint
1 year ago

The asbestos example is a good one but so is the idea that we pretend to stop a little bit of warming which would if it was really true help to alleviate the 20 times more deaths that actually occur because of cold. All over the western world local governments and national governments compete with each other to see who can pretend to save the planet hardest and fastest, usually with the most hair brained costly schemes when there are serious issues that this money could be spent on. On a much bigger scale we in the wealthy west send billions of pounds and dollars to poor countries for some turbines and solar panels to bribe them into not using fossil fuels. The only fuels that can bring them out of the abject misery they face. Over a billion of these poor people don’t even have any electricity which wealthy people in Europe etc would never accept, yet we are telling these people that they should leave their coal in the ground because of global warming, something they have never heard of. What we are really doing with this nonsense is telling these people that they can never have electricity. —-This is not only absurd but a diabolical disgrace.

61
0
EppingBlogger
EppingBlogger
1 year ago
Reply to  varmint

It reminds me of Labour Councils becoming “nuclear free” in the 1960s to 1980s. Presumably they had umbrellas to deflect the fall out and filters to make sure no nuke generated electricity reached their meters.

so it is now.

abolish agriculture, chop down trees and spread panels made from polluting chemicals all over them. And with no plan for dealing with broken and end of life panel material.

51
0
Ron Smith
Ron Smith
1 year ago

“In Plymouth last year the council sent in men with chainsaws in the middle of the night to chop more than 100 trees down”

These psychopath councils have gone beyond their remit. They should be prosecuted.

52
0
RW
RW
1 year ago
Reply to  Ron Smith

My personal theory why people are so keen on killing trees is that they just hate that these are taller than them.

There used to be a beautiful row of mature chestnut trees on the riverside front of former HMP Reading which was called Chestnut Walk because of them. During lockdown, the council had them all destroyed because “they were diseased”. They’ve planted new ones but I’ll never live to see this close lined with actual trees again.

29
0
EppingBlogger
EppingBlogger
1 year ago
Reply to  RW

In building sites it is routine for builders to obtain arboriculturalists’ reports which call for the destruction of healthy trees. Builders and most of their customers don’t like trees, whatever they say.

there is an obligation to enhance biodiversity but it is not practiced and no one seems to bother.

28
0
NeilofWatford
NeilofWatford
1 year ago

Don’t forget the devastation wrought by HS2 either, the concreting of middle England, to save a few mins on a journey from ‘somewhere outside London’ to ‘somewhere outside Birmingham’. If you can afford a ticket …

54
-1
iconoclast
iconoclast
1 year ago

Headlines are important.

The headline to this article should be “Green Politics and Policies Damage Us and The Environment” or just “Greens Are Damaging the Environment“.

“Let’s Spare the Environment From the Greens” is too weak.

15
0
CircusSpot
CircusSpot
1 year ago

A local ‘Green’ made the mistake of stopping me on my way through our local market to harangue me about my green credentials.
He did not expect me to retaliate and he certainly did not practise what he was happy to preach to everyone else.
It gathered quite a crowd and enough support for my side to see him pack up and move away.

39
0

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