The Education Committee has proposed a range of measures to reverse the worrying trend of children’s absence from school.
Whilst successive ministers have prioritised getting children back to school since the pandemic, the overall figures, and more concerningly for ‘persistent’ and ‘severe absence’, have failed to return to pre-pandemic levels.
In its new report the cross-party Committee explores how growing demand for mental health services and special educational needs (SEND) support, as well as cost-of-living pressures and other issues, have compounded a problem that worsened following the covid lockdowns but remains present.
The most recent full-year statistics (for the 2021/22 academic year) showed an overall absence rate of 7.6%, up from around 4-5% before the pandemic. In that year, 22.5% of pupils were persistently absent, meaning they missed 10% or more of school sessions – around double the pre-pandemic rate. 1.7% of all pupils were severely absent, meaning they missed more than half of sessions, compared to less than 1% pre-pandemic.
