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.
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So how much longer are lockdowns going to be blamed before we address the obvious, which would be that a kid getting to school is the parent’s responsibility? I’m sorry but this doesn’t wash with me. Lockdowns ended ages ago and it’s just too convenient to keep on scapegoating that particular restriction, at least for this issue. They’re stating this has been a problem across 2022, we’re well into 2023, so are you telling me that teachers aren’t clocking exactly which kids are repeatedly not appearing to class and notifying the parents?
What about those children whose parents have taken full responsibility for them & permanently removed them from the state funded
brainwashingeducation system? Having decided that they were harmed enough, to limit further harm & to start to repair the damage inflicted?Many of those children will be included in the reduced numbers attending.
They wouldn’t be included in the absentee figures the article is on about though. You’d go through the proper channels and inform the school you’re removing your kid and presumably state why. The teachers aren’t going to keep taking a register every day with kids names on who’ve left. I didn’t even think home schooling was allowed in the UK, though I know it’s popular in the US. It’d be interesting to get figures on how many do it and if the trend for it increased over the last few years.
The teachers were remiss in their duty lockdowns was an excuse for many of them to wilfully turn a blind eye to the vulnerable and at risk. They clocked the children absent but did nothing about it. In our little corner of the UK know of 17 children that had difficulty accessing (pre)schools 2 children died yet their parent/guardian are still receiving letters from their LA about attendance…there’s something off about the figures and the way things are reported/followed up…
100% agree. Also, having a teacher in the family, there are many young people who disrupt the class and teaching and the teachers prefer it when that young person is not there. That is another product of failed parenting.
Is homeschooling allowed or accessible in the UK? Don’t schools fine parents who take a child out a day early for a holiday or term break or for too many sick days? Shouldn’t there be stories in the Daily Mail about outraged parents being fined hundreds of pounds for their children’s missing school days?
In the UK it is every parent’s legal right to educate their child as they see fit.
The stupidity of it all is that – at the same time – councils are legally obliged to “satisfy themselves that children are receiving an education suitable to their age and ability”.
As long as the parents have removed their children legally from the school (by quoting the correct clause of legislation), they are within their rights to completely ignore the council’s advances. But many people in the councils seem not to know this.
In the US, homeschooling is also every parent’s legal right, though how many hoops a parent has to jump through depends on the state–lefty states make homeschooling much more difficult. I regret not homeschooling my children for longer, as they’ve all turned out to be lefties. I tell myself that it’s hard to compete against the relentless propaganda of schools, social media, the entertainment industry, and even department stores like Target.
Children aren’t in school because a lot of parents have seen how screwed up the “education” system is.
Do you know if the Montessori schools, or others following a different philosophy to the mainstream, have embraced the Woke grooming nonsense?
Given the requirements to teach perverted filth to children come from the DoE and are backed up by the extremists who run teaching unions, it’s likely they all have to obey or face being downgraded by Ofsted.
Beware of articles such as these. This was in ‘The Mail’ with the words ‘the pandemic normalised truancy’. What HAS happened is that parents no longer trust ‘The State’ to ‘educate’ their children and have withdrawn them to educate at home. When schools can inject & indoctrinate children at will, they can no longer be trusted. What we have is parents taking ownership and taking away the power of the state over their children, and articles such as these, especially those associated with negative words such as truancy, attempt to legitimise public support and legislation for seizing that power. We must remain vigilant, as suggestive pieces like these tend to precede something more ominous.
Thank you.
So that’s the story the paper should be telling. Instead they’re predictably acting as the government’s mouthpiece and misrepresenting the facts in order to present a narrative. The charade must be upheld, apparently. Well, to coin a phrase, “the media is the virus.”
Johnboy12 isn’t wrong – most will have missed this back in March. Even more will not have grasped the impact it will have…
Home Education: Registration and Regulation
Department for Education written question – answered on 9th March 2023.
Lord Warner, Crossbench:
To ask His Majesty’s Government what progress they have made, if any, in (1) registering, and (2) regulating, the home tuition of children to ensure that they (a) are taught a balanced curriculum, and (b) are able to secure recognised national qualifications.
Baroness Barran, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education:
The department remains committed to introducing statutory local authority registers for children not in school, as well as a duty for local authorities to provide support to home-educating families. The department will legislate for these at the next suitable opportunity, to help local authorities undertake their existing duties to ensure all children receive a suitable education and are safe, regardless of where they are educated. However, local authorities’ existing powers and duties, if used in the way set out in our guidance, are enough for a local authority to determine whether provision is suitable.
Elective home education needs to be suitable, although there is no requirement to follow the national curriculum, nor are parents required to enter children for public examinations. However, if the home education does consist of one or more of these, that would constitute strong evidence that education was ‘suitable’ in terms of section 7 of the Education Act 1996.
I find this distinctly plausible. Can anyone point us to sources of data that can be used to confirm this (or otherwise)?
I remember reading some lines from C S Lewis. About how the devil might take us. He said that at a certain point it became easy for people to be captured becuse they stopped talking to each other and that without the magic of human contact we easily fall prey to sinister forces. He is right about this and so any mode of thinking that could overlook the most fundamental element of the human condition is itself captured by a force that it wishes to promulgate
When I was growing up we has extended family, aunts and uncles and grandparents living in one house. And there were arguments every day but there was still a sense of connection no matter what.In a few short decades many of us have dispensed with extended family for the sake of money. This is a big mistake. These ways of living endured for thousands of years for a reason. There is simply nothing left without them. Sometimes it takes a break or schism to remnd us of the things that matter.
You wait and see the bitter crop that you have deposited by an act of emptiness. It is the worst tthing for a child, to feel that they have been betrayed by adults. And it is written large in their minds the scale of the betrayal. How could you do this to me? And the answer is a rather limp excuse for taking the easy way out. You do great damage to a child when you cease to be a rock for them.
When you went to school there was at least a sense of honing one’s scientific and mathematical capability alongside an education in the arts and humanitites. We didn’t take advice from anyone when it comes to education and our tradition. These young people now are just as vital and questoning. We should provide the pathway for them. If there is a deficiency it lies with us,
The article misses out that many schools reneged on their duty to safeguard our children before the plandemic and throughout. Parent’s eyes have been opened and many have removed their children from state/fee paying schools that have been wholly inadequate in more ways than one. Be it bullying (staff-pupil or peer-peer), sexual assaults, perverse curriculum content or the indoctrination with BLM, CRT etc we’ve had enough. There is an explosion within the home-ed community with tutoring, co-ops and online schools gaining traction – there is no requirement for those entities to report to the Dept. For Education yet, although have noticed the push for a home school register (nefarious reasons am sure)…
Any kid that hates school, can just say that they’ve got covid and they need to self-isolate for 10 days. Go back to school for a few days and then oh no, I’ve got long covid and it just isn’t going away. I need to isolate for another 10 days. No problem about school, I can just do school online. I don’t want to spread covid to anybody, that would be so evil of me, and I have vulnerable teachers. I wouldn’t want to give it to them. I’d better do the right thing and stay off for a few more months.