Where are Britain’s missing schoolchildren?

School attendance is failing to return to pre-pandemic levels as data shows that more than one in five children in England are still frequently absent.

Before the pandemic around one in 10 students were “persistently absent”, meaning they missed at least 10% of school days a year or approximately one or more days every fortnight. But over the past academic year, Department for Education (DfE) statistics reveal that 22.3% of pupils in England now fall into this category, said the BBC.

Speaking to the BBC’s “Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg”, Rachel de Souza, the children’s commissioner for England, said this meant 1.8 million children were regularly missing school, with some 100,000 of those believed to playing truant.

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“We’ve got a real problem post-pandemic around attendance,” she said. “1.8 million of an eight million cohort is huge… that’s double the number from before the pandemic.”

Who is missing from school and why?

The reason behind children being persistently absent from school is complex, said de Souza. Some are playing truant while others are experiencing anxiety or have educational needs that means it is easier for them to learn at home.

The DfE data shows that the problem is most pronounced among children receiving free school meals (37.9%) and those with education, health and care plans (33.4%).

The data also shows that absence due to illness rose from 2.1% in 2020-21 to 4.4% last year. Unauthorised absences rose from 1.3% to 2.1% in the same period.

There are now “more relaxed attitudes among parents in allowing children to stay home”, said Timo Hannay, managing director of the education data website SchoolDash. This is thanks to the “proven capacity of schools to provide online alternatives to in-person teaching”, he told Schools Week. Parents are also now more likely to let their children take Fridays off school; a 2023 study by the children’s commissioner, based on three academy trusts, found that nearly a quarter of children missed at least one Friday during the autumn 2021 term.

Why is attendance so important?

Regular school attendance is vital for a child’s “achievement, wellbeing, and wider development”, according to the government’s Education Hub blog.

Research indicates that students with high attendance perform better in GCSE and A-level exams than those with lower attendance.

Primary school children in key stage 2 who didn’t achieve the expected standard in reading, writing and maths missed on average four more days per school year than those whose performance exceeded the expected standard, according to government data. Secondary school pupils who didn’t achieve grades 9 to 4 in English and maths missed 10 more days on average over the key stage than those who achieved the higher grades.

What is the government doing?

The government has promised to expand its “attendance hubs” programme in England in a bid to encourage more children to return to school. These are led by senior school leaders with strong attendance rates, who share strategies with other schools, such as automatic text messaging to parents of absent children and using data to identify pupils at risk of persistent absence.

Parents of children in England who consistently miss school also face £60 fines, which rise to £120 if they are not paid within 21 days. These are normally issued by the local authority.