As the recent pandemic eased, we have commenced rebuilding our lives. Our workplaces are once again open, shopping centres reborn, sports stadia full and children focus back on life in the classroom and socialising with their friends in school. Ofsted inspections and examinations have returned as if nothing had happened as schools picked up the performance agenda and league table positions.
But a major issue has emerged and concerns all schools, the fall in attendance linked to the pandemic. Department for Education (DfE) statistics illustrate since 2020, when schools were directed to close by central government, pupil absence stood at 5% of the school population. It is presently at 7.5% and represents an increase of 50%.
Worryingly, the Covid related absence rate was at 7% at the height of the pandemic when schools were fully open to pupils but has fallen to 1.6% and is presently 0%. Closer examination demonstrates persistent absence, that is when pupils miss 10% or more of their lessons, has increase from 13% to 24%, in effect almost double against the rate prior to the pandemic. In terms of pupils in secondary education, the figure rises to 28%, almost one third of all teenagers.
When probing the trends more closely those schools identified by DfE with indicators of disadvantage have far higher levels of both absence and persistent absence when compared to schools with lower numbers of disadvantaged pupils (Sutton Trust, 2023). Extrapolating these measures suggests from those families identified as disadvantaged that 40% of their children are persistently absent.
