Fines unlikely to shift dial on school attendance says NAHT

Responding to the first weekly school attendance figures of 2025, Paul Whiteman, general secretary at school leaders' union NAHT, said:

“School leaders work hard to ensure pupils attend school, and while the unauthorised absence figures for this particular week show a small increase compared to last year, there is a slight improvement over the academic year to date.

“However, we have long argued that fining parents is a blunt tool which does not get to the root causes of non-attendance, and we did not believe that increasing these fines would shift the dial in any meaningful way.

“The last government failed to invest anything like enough in early support for families facing challenges in their lives including poverty and mental health.

“It will be vital that the new administration builds on measures like its register of children not in school by investing more in services like social care and children's mental health – and important that its child poverty taskforce leads to tangible action.”