- National school attendance charity School-Home Support is calling for the Government to strengthen its Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to help schools engage with families to reduce lost learning through absence.
- As the Bill is in the House of Lords for its second reading on Thursday 1 May, School-Home Support is calling on Peers to support their amendments to increase capacity in schools to engage positively with families about barriers to schools.
- The school attendance crisis continues, with latest Government data revealing that 1.49 million children are still ‘persistently absent’ from school and that a record 171,000 children are ‘severely absent’.
- School-Home Support’s School Attendance Gap Day campaign highlights that the 171,000 ‘severely absent’ children in England are losing at least half of their learning, effectively finishing their school year on 4 February.
- School-Home Support impact data shows that, with access to whole family support, ‘severely absent’ pupils improved their attendance by an average of 46 days, increasing their final school day from 4 February to today, 1 May.
- Whole family support workers have the time and skills to address the underlying causes of school absence, delivering long term solutions for children, families, schools and communities.
- Investing in whole family support services will be transformational for the education system and deliver a huge return on investment.
Strengthening the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
As experts in addressing the root causes of school absence through a whole family support approach, School-Home Support welcomes the much needed attendance measures included in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and is keen to see it pass swiftly through the House of Lords. However, the charity is calling for the Government to go much further and faster in securing additional resources for schools to support families with attendance issues to address the scale of lost learning through absence.
School-Home Support has briefed the Lords on the following amendments to the Bill:
- Commit to funding a whole family support practitioner for every school;
- Mandate schools to train staff to embed a support-led, family-centric approach to addressing low attendance;
- Consult on a new vulnerability code for attendance registers that indicates when a child is absent but receiving support;
- Publish guidance on parental engagement and review impact of sanctions on attendance and relationship with parents/carers
For more information on the amendments please see the full Lord’s Briefing.
The School Attendance Crisis
1.49 million children in England are still losing enough learning to damage their future life chances.
Recent Government attendance data for the 2023/24 academic year demonstrates that school attendance is still a significant challenge and that the time to invest in a whole family support worker for every school is now. Despite the tremendous efforts of schools, local services and the third sector, the number of children who are ‘persistently absent’ from school has nearly doubled since pre-pandemic (2018/19). A record 171,000 children are ‘severely absent’, an increase of 184% in the same period.
The School Attendance Gap Day campaign, launched in February by School-Home Support, found that a record 171,000 children are ‘severely absent’ from school, missing at least 50% of their learning and effectively finishing their school year on 4 February.
School-Home Support’s whole family approach is proven to be particularly effective with children experiencing more significant levels of absence, where more intense help is required to understand and support barriers to school.
‘Severely absent’ children supported by the charity in 2023/2024 regained over 9 weeks of lost learning by improving their attendance by an average of 46 days – increasing their final school day from 4 February to 1 May. Wider outcomes of our approach include improved wellbeing for young people, families and school staff which are key to delivering lasting change on metrics like school attendance.
Jaine Stannard, School-Home Support CEO said:
‘The School-Home Support whole family support practitioner model could and should be scaled. Our approach works because practitioners have the time and skills to develop positive relationships with parents, digging deeper into the root causes of absence. Rising tensions between teachers and parents occur because there isn’t enough time to talk in the system. Investing in whole family support approaches (including training for school staff) will be transformative for young people, parents and school staff alike.’