The government is to make a new effort to repair sagging school attendance figures in England, with the education secretary to announce funding for “attendance mentors” in some of the worst-affected areas.
Pupil absences remain stubbornly higher than before the Covid pandemic, and during a visit to Liverpool on Monday Gillian Keegan is expected to announce plans for caseworkers to offer one-to-one support for pupils in 10 areas including Blackpool and Walsall, where rates of unauthorised absences remain far above national levels.
But critics said the government was failing to tackle the magnitude of the problem after an estimated 1.5 million pupils missed 10% or more of their scheduled classes in autumn and spring last year.
A pilot involving attendance mentors is already being run in five areas by the children’s charity Barnardo’s, including in Middlesbrough, Stoke-on-Trent and Knowsley, with Keegan’s announcement expanding the programme to groups of schools in 15 “priority education investment areas”.
A £15m tender by the Department for Education (DfE) last year estimated that the recruited mentors would work with 3,600 children for one year initially, in addition to the 1,600 children to be mentored in the pilots run by Barnardo’s over three years.
A Labour source said: “This is a laughably poor response to the biggest challenge facing schools today. One in five kids are regularly missing school – Gillian Keegan’s answer is akin to putting out a raging inferno with a water pistol.
“It’s another crushing reminder that the conveyor belt of useless Tory education secretaries have nothing to offer when it comes to improving children’s life chances.
