Poor attendance is one of the biggest issues facing schools right now.
In response to growing absenteeism, the government announced last month that it’s increasing fines for parents who keep their kids off without permission.
But fines have failed to help turn the tide so far and those working with families say it’s unlikely to make any difference to unauthorised absence rates, which are spiralling out of control.
READ MORE: Anyone who thinks bigger fines is the answer to school attendance rates needs their head testing
Headteachers tell us they’re facing an uphill battle to get kids in class. The fallout of the pandemic has seen parents allowing children to ‘stay off at the slightest sign of not being 100%’ and it’s broken the ‘unspoken social contract between home and school’.
At Fred Longworth High School in Tyldesley, Wigan, headteacher Paul Davies says the secondary is in the top 25% of similar schools nationally for attendance, but attendance ‘is not as it was pre-pandemic’.
