Labour has vowed to reset the “broken relationship between schools and families” by tackling the crisis in pupil absences and child mental health, ahead of rival policy announcements from the party and the government this week.
Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, is to set out the “generational challenges” facing England’s schools and pupils in a keynote speech on Tuesday. It will come a day after the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, announces the government’s latest efforts to repair school attendance rates since the Covid pandemic.
Phillipson told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg: “The challenge that we’re seeing at the moment around persistent absenteeism means that one in five children are regularly out of school. That figure is set to rise to one in four.
“That is a staggering number of children. It’s damaging their life chances and it’s damaging the life chances of all of the children within the school community too.”
In her speech, Phillipson will state: “The Conservatives have nothing to say about the broken relationship between schools and families that has provoked the crisis we’re seeing in attendance – these measures are only tinkering around the edges of a generational challenge.
“Persistent absence has reached historic levels under the Conservatives, beginning even before the pandemic, and they cannot be trusted to fix a problem that they have caused.”
Labour’s plans include more mental health counsellors for secondary schools, and universal free breakfast clubs for every primary school pupil. The plans will only apply to England, with education policy devolved to national governments.
