Asked by
To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to empower
Ofsted to review pupil absence rates as part of their school
inspections.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Education () (Con)
My Lords, improving attendance is a top priority for this
Government, because it is vital for children’s learning,
well-being and long-term development. As part of its existing
framework, Ofsted expects schools to do all they reasonably can
to achieve the highest possible attendance. Inspectors will check
that schools have a clear understanding of the causes of absence
in their school and that the necessary strategies are in place to
improve attendance.
(Lab)
I thank the Minister for that Answer. She knows that a child is
deemed to be persistently absent if they have missed 10% or more
of lessons. Across the two school terms prior to the current one,
around one in five children were persistently absent from primary
and secondary schools, which is more than double the figure five
years ago. So there is an existential crisis and a safeguarding
issue, because the link between absenteeism—children missing from
school—and children taken into home education is strong. Ofsted
and the Children’s Commissioner want to see a register of
children not in schools, which the Government have said they
support, so why was that measure not included in the King’s
Speech, which was not exactly overloaded with legislation?
(Con)
The Government remain committed to legislating to set up a
register of children not in school. The noble Lord may be aware
that the honourable Member for Meon Valley has introduced a
Private Member’s Bill, and we will be working hard with her as
she progresses that.
(Con)
My Lords, when children of 14 decide to leave their school and go
to a university technical college, their absence rate falls
dramatically compared to that at their previous school. They like
going to a UTC because they can work in workshops as well as
classrooms, they can learn by their hands as well as their
brains, and they visit companies looking for jobs. I assure your
Lordships that, unless that sort of education is deeply embedded,
the absence rates of disadvantaged students will not fall,
because they are told all the time by the Department for
Education that they must study eight academic subjects. We need a
curriculum fitted to this century.
(Con)
My noble friend needs to consider also the patterns of attendance
before the pandemic. The curriculum was the same before the
pandemic as post-pandemic, but attendance rates are very
different. Linking absence entirely to the curriculum may require
further consideration.
(CB)
My Lords, the Minister will recall that in the Children’s
Commissioner’s latest report, on absenteeism, she says:
“For some, the pandemic has led to disengagement. Schools and
families have said that they feel like the social contract
between parents and schools has been broken”.
Could we be assured that an Ofsted report will consider also the
positive and creative engagement of parents in school life?
(Con)
The noble Lord makes a good point. We need not wait just for
Ofsted in order to look at the positive engagement of parents.
Many of the schools I visit are focused substantially on that and
on making sure that parents get positive feedback about their
children in school—not just a call when their child is not
there.
(LD)
My Lords, what are the Government doing about people who attend
unregistered —effectively illegal—schools, often of a very
dubious religious nature? What are they doing to eradicate this
and to make sure that children receive an education that enables
them to stand on their own two feet outside closed
communities?
(Con)
The noble Lord will be aware that Ofsted has been involved in a
number of prosecutions of illegal schools. We remain very
concerned about those—indeed, the Private Member’s Bill to which
I referred earlier will go some way to addressing this issue.
My Lords, I express gratitude to the Minister for the way in
which the data has been produced; I understand that more is to
come, and that will be examined in great detail. As an
unrepentant pedant, though, I am as interested in the adverbs as
the nouns—in how the data is to be applied. How do we get more
children across the line in terms of the culture of school? Some
years ago, the Children’s Society’s Young Commissioners looked
deeply into child poverty in school and how children are
identified as those, for instance, receiving free school meals or
who are not able to purchase the very expensive school uniforms
from the agreed seller. How is school culture being encouraged by
government further to change in order to get children across the
line? How, indeed, do we expect Ofsted to become the “office of
encouragement”?
(Con)
As the right reverend Prelate knows, Ofsted is about to start its
Big Listen exercise, so maybe that is one of the questions that
could be asked. He asks an important question about how the data
will be used. There is more we can do within the department on
analysing and breaking down the data into more actionable insight
for schools, and we will start engaging with trusts and local
authorities on that very shortly. We need to be careful to make
sure that children who really have major barriers to coming to
school and whose attendance is very poor are not conflated with
those who are in school nine or nine and a half days out of 10.
It is about how we get those ones, too, over the line.
(Lab)
We have a crisis of attendance in our schools. Research from the
Centre for Social Justice reveals that more than one in four
parents think that school is not essential every day. It is
essential. What can the Government do to repair the relationship
between schools and families, which has deteriorated greatly in
recent years?
(Con)
Again, we have to be very careful not to make sweeping
generalisations. We are seeing lots of green shoots in terms of
attendance and higher-level attendance, particularly in
transition year groups such as year seven, when children go from
primary to secondary school. There are important things we can
build on, such as having open, honest, regular communication with
parents, pointing out if a child has not been coming into school
and trying to understand why. But more importantly, celebrating
with a parent a child’s attendance or performance in school is to
be encouraged.
(Con)
My Lords, it is absolutely right to tackle school absence, but as
we approach Rare Disease Day, I draw attention to the huge
pressures faced by children and families with rare and
undiagnosed conditions in trying to remain in education. The lack
of specialist resources and awareness act as barriers.
Understandably, in these complex situations it is not always
possible to avoid absence. Will the Minister meet with charities
and family representatives to see how we can design these
policies without increasing the pressures on those families?
(Con)
I would be delighted to meet with the charities and families to
which my noble friend refers. She makes an important point, and
it goes back to the point made earlier by the noble Baroness—that
parents need to feel that the response they are getting from
their school is about their child. To every parent, their child
is very special.
(CB)
My Lords, we know that children with profound and multiple
learning difficulties, physical disabilities and social,
emotional and mental health special educational primary needs
have the highest rates of school absence. In spring 2023, 384,202
children with some form of identified special educational need
were persistently absent. Given what we know about the link
between persistent absenteeism and life chances, does the
Minister agree that this risks widening the gap between the more
advantaged and the less advantaged in our society? What are the
Government doing to support children with special educational
needs and disabilities to succeed in school?
(Con)
The Government are doing a great deal, starting with their
investment in a dramatic increase in the number of specialist
places for children with the kinds of special needs and
disabilities the noble Baroness refers to, through our attendance
hubs programme in particular. I met a group of chief executives
of specialist multi-academy trusts which are working with
children with special educational needs and those in alternative
provision. We are seeking to identify best practice and making
sure it is a shared peer to peer.
