Education Secretary sets roadmap to get back to pre-pandemic attendance levels

• Every school to be set an individual minimum target to improve attendance and set up every child to achieve and thrive. 
• AI-powered improvement targets come alongside new support offer from high performing schools.

• Government will build on best-in-a-decade attendance gains to restore millions of days of lost learning and drive national renewal. 

Children stand to gain millions more days of learning as the Education Secretary has set every school an individual minimum attendance improvement target – part of an urgent drive to restore absence to pre-pandemic levels. 

Last year saw the biggest improvement in overall attendance in a decade, with the government overseeing 5.3 million more days in school and 140,000 fewer persistently absent pupils as part of its Plan for Change.  

But with 1 in 3 schools failing to improve, the Department for Education is today (Wednesday 12^th) setting out a roadmap for every school to double down on its efforts to support pupils back to class, as research shows the importance of every day in school for children's opportunity in life and future earnings.

From this month, every school will be issued with AI-powered minimum attendance improvement targets to ensure children are in school and ready to achieve.  The attendance baseline improvement expectation (ABIE) will be based on schools' circumstances – including location, pupil needs and deprivation. 

The department is also using AI and data to give more support to schools to meet the minimum expectations, by linking them up with high performing schools with similar circumstances. These top schools will be identified within each school's ABIE report.

This comes alongside 36 new Attendance and Behaviour Hubs launching today, which will offer direct one-to-one support reaching tens of thousands of pupils across hundreds of schools, as wider sharing of best practice through events and open days. 

Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, said:

“We can only deliver opportunity for children in our country if they're in school, achieving and thriving. That's why I want every school to play its part in getting attendance back to – and beyond – pre-pandemic levels.

"We've already delivered the biggest improvement in attendance in a decade and now we're building a school system for the future with free breakfast clubs, more mental health support and a curriculum and enrichment offer to match. But we must go further. 

“By working jointly with schools to set individual targets, we're tackling variation head-on. Our best schools already have a brilliant approach to attendance, and now we're driving that focus everywhere so that all children are supported to attend school and learn."

Research also identifies a significant attendance drop-off during Key Stage 3 as pupils struggle to settle in to secondary school life and emerging issues start to surface. 

That is why schools will now receive a best practice toolkit targeting these critical transition moments – like the jump from primary to secondary and Year 7 to 8 – giving them proven strategies to keep children engaged. 

At CHS South in Manchester, the school encourages strong starts to secondary school by creating a sense of community with parents and pupils. Parents say the strategies, like family cooking classes in the summer before year 7 have eased anxiety around the transition.  

Sue Burke, Deputy Headteacher and Attendance Lead, CHS South, Manchester: 

“Our ambition is that no-one is left behind or left on the outside looking in. We welcome and celebrate our young people and their families from their very first interaction with us, which in turn creates a community of belonging.   

“Attendance is a whole staff team effort and we are particularly proud of our attendance team, who work with relentless drive offering support and empathy to students and their families, while also providing skilful and personalised challenge when needed.” 

King's Leadership Academy Warrington, one of the best practice examples in the new toolkit, creates an environment where all children can belong and thrive with weekly enrichment sessions where pupils choose activities including crochet, gardening and sign language.

This work to offer more enrichment opportunity has seen huge success in improving pupil attendance with one severely absent pupil now coming in to school more regularly so she can be part of the school's community outreach programme to deliver reading support to younger children. 

Umar Hussain, Kings Leadership Academy headteacher, said: 

“At King's every day and every lesson counts. We create many opportunities to interact with our students and it's those moments that build a genuine sense of belonging.  

“Our students matter to us, every child is noticed and greeted throughout the day, whether during lesson transitions, break times, or with a handshake and words of praise in lessons. Through these daily interactions, our students feel valued and connected, which helps them become happy, confident learners who want to attend school every day.” 

The government is tackling barriers to attendance head-on: from calling for schools to provide a base level of enrichment opportunities getting more children excited to attend, limiting branded uniform items to minimise social and financial pressure, and rolling out free breakfast clubs so no child starts the day hungry. 

ENDS

Notes to editors

• Individualised minimum expectations on improvement will be included in school's AI powered reports – known as attendance baseline improvement expectations. They aim to help lift the floor on school performance, as part of a ladder of progress helping schools and wider services back to Pre-Covid levels of attendance –without capping ambition.    

• Progress against the expectations will be used to provide support including through RISE rather than formal accountability purposes. Schools will receive the minimum expectations for 24/25 on a test and learn basis for the first year and progress will be interpreted thoughtfully given attendance levels can sometimes be hit by local ‘shocks'.  Ofsted does not have access to the targets, which will not be published.   

• The expectations take into account the circumstances of schools including what similar schools have achieved. They are part of a broader whole system strategy to drive higher attendance.  

• Schools will also be provided with the names of similar schools in the region with higher attendance outcomes, offering further insight to drive improvement.    

• To support higher attendance, the government has:  

o   Introduced new statutory guidance (August 24) establishing a support first ethos, including an expectation that schools appoint a senior attendance champion and local authorities meet termly with schools to agree plans for at-risk children.  

o   Created a new national enforcement framework to drive more consistent use of attendance penalties.  

o   Is establishing a network for peer-to-peer school support through 90 new Attendance and Behaviour Hubs, reaching 5000 schools a year once at scale.    

o   Provided support and challenge through the Opportunity Mission including AI-powered similar schools reports, 12 regional conferences aiming to reach every secondary in the country and conversation with trusts and local authorities.   

o   Targeted 1:1 support for over 10,000 pupils through the attendance mentors programme, with £15m investment over the next 3 years  

o   Targeted comms campaign at regional and national level aimed at parents.