Bolder action to tackle the school absence crisis is urgently
needed to avoid truancy becoming “deeply entrenched”, according
to a major new report by the Centre for Social Justice.
Softening attitudes to attendance, dysfunctional home lives, and
a lack of engagement from teachers are all driving down rates of
attendance, the report says.
The report 'Absent Ambition' has highlighted the attendance
crisis plaguing UK schools over the last four years. A copy has
been sent to ministers, who are planning to attend a CSJ
conference tomorrow in central London.
The CSJ study, produced in partnership with The Rigby Foundation,
exposes the appalling cost to young people and society of
declining levels of school attendance, which have plummeted since
the Covid pandemic but were on a downward path well before
2020.
New data reveals that many parents no longer value school for
their children, while others who are desperate to return an
absent child to the classroom feel they are “on their own”.
Polling conducted by Whitestone Insight for the CSJ found that
almost half of British parents of school-age children (44 per
cent) think it is “reasonable” for a pupil to miss one in every
10 days of school – in other words to be “persistently
absent”.
Two in five secondary school parents (42 per cent) said “most of
what my child gets taught in school is unlikely to help them in
later life”.
The CSJ study finds that persistent absence (missing at least 10
per cent of lessons or a day every fortnight) and severe absence
(missing 50 per cent or more of lessons, so out of school more
often than not) have both soared.
Annual figures show persistent absence has doubled since 2018/19
and severe absence has quadrupled over the last decade.
The CSJ report trumpets the horrific social and economic cost of
a generation of mostly working class teenagers turning their
backs on the classroom: “This is a crisis wrecking the life
chances of thousands of children, but also the future of our
economy,” the CSJ says.
The report reveals that failure to attend school regularly
extinguishes hopes of GCSE passes and is a reliable predictor of
a disastrous adult life marred by crime, unemployment and low
earnings.
The future lifetime loss in earnings across all today's chronic
truants is as much as £28 billion, the report warns.
The CSJ finds:
- Academic attainment: pupils with over 95 per cent attendance
are three times as likely as those with 85-90 per cent attendance
to achieve a Grade 5 in English and Maths.
- Crime: a persistently absent pupil is three times as likely
as other pupils to become a young offender within two years of
leaving school.
- Worklessness: a persistently absent pupil is over six times
as likely to become persistently NEET (Not in Employment,
Education or Training), meaning 180,000 school leavers risk
falling into unemployment or long-term economic inactivity
because of persistent absence during this Parliament.
- Earnings: Persistently absent pupils are £10,000 worse off by
aged 28, and each day of absence loses an estimated £750 in
lifetime earnings, meaning extra absence in 2023/24 as compared
with 2018/19 results in an estimated loss of lifetime earnings
among today's school leavers of £28.3 billion.
The CSJ report identifies three “root causes” of the flight from
the classroom.
- Mutual breakdown of trust between home and school –
highlighted in findings showing that four in five headteachers
say that that they have suffered parental abuse in the last year
with one in ten being violently attacked
- A growing belief among parents that there is no link between
success at school and getting a good job later. Over two fifths
of secondary school parents (42 per cent according to the
Whitestone Insight poll) believe that most of what their children
are taught will not help them in later life
- Family breakdown. A half of all UK children are growing up
with just one biological parent and those living with no
biological parent are almost three times as likely to be
persistently absent as those living with both parents
The report says it is time to reverse “softening attitudes and
low attendance awareness”.
“The Government should tackle low awareness of the harms of
absence and draw from evidence of similar interventions to
introduce a new mandatory Attendance Awareness Course at the
beginning of the legal intervention process for unauthorised
absence.
“After voluntary routes have been exhausted, parents would be
referred to a mandatory awareness course before being issued a
fine, or an Attendance Case Management (ACM) case is opened.
“Non-attendance or refusal should result in receipt of an
increased fine of £200, or £100 if paid within 21 days.”
Modelling suggests that at full rollout the courses would see
over one million fewer days lost to absence over the
parliament.
Alongside tougher penalties the CSJ calls on ministers to
radically expanding the support for parents struggling to get a
severely absent pupil back to school, as well as measures to roll
out extracurricular activities enjoyed widely across the
independent school sector to state schools. Recommendations
include:
- The national rollout of ‘attendance mentors' to help parents
with severely absent pupils with complex needs or SEND drawing
from the most effective local models
- An additional five hours a week of extracurricular activities
and enrichment, provided by local community groups, including a
Right to Sport – two hours per week of physical activity
- Expanding the roll out of Family Hubs and new teacher
training on parental engagement
- A new drive to expand work experience opportunities for young
people, reconnecting the link between classrooms and the
workplace
The report as last week the Education Secretary acknowledged “we
all need to do more, and when it comes to getting kids in and
behaving – this includes mums, dads and carers too.”
Dan Lilley, Senior Researcher at the CSJ said:
“Ministers are making welcome progress in turning the tide on the
absence crisis, but the danger now is that softening attitudes to
attendance are becoming entrenched, locking thousands of children
into a future of wrecked lives and wasted potential.
“This is not only a moral disaster for each and every child, but
a crater in our future workforce that Britain can ill afford.
“Today the CSJ has advanced a serious plan to put an end to this
crisis, combining a tougher approach attacking the drivers of
absence while expanding the help for parents desperate to get
their pupils reengaging with the learning. The time for bold
action is now.”
Sir Iain Duncan MP, said:
“Britain cannot hope to grow its economy if hundreds of thousands
of young people are vanishing from classrooms.
"Persistent school absence is a disaster for individual prospects
but it is also an economic time bomb. Today's plan from the CSJ
combines carrot and stick to resolve this crisis once and for
all."
Steve Rigby, Chair of the Rigby Foundation, said:
“The nation's absence crisis is starving children of the flame of
ambition and depriving them of an enriching education. This
report maps out a road to recovery. Two great ideas stand out to
me as an employer and parent – expanding opportunities for work
experience and getting the right support for families striving in
difficult situations through attendance mentors.”
ENDS
Please find the report Absent
Ambition here.
