Pupil Absenteeism

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 7th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right that we have seen big increases in the number of children who are missing school, both those who are persistently absent and those who are severely absent, as I said in my earlier response. My noble friend is right that, particularly to deal with children who are severely absent, you need to bring together a range of properly resourced agencies to work on the individual plans I talked about in the previous answer. That is one of the reasons why we are investing £500 million in children’s social care and in prevention, so that we can ensure that severely absent children are routinely assessed for family help, bringing together those services in the way she outlined.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that children who fail at school, and who know they are failing, are far more likely to be absent? With that in mind, what are we doing about getting proper assessment to help those children, particularly those with special educational needs, without going through a long, expensive and slow identification process?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

For children with special educational needs, it is really important that, as we have discussed previously, those needs are identified early. That is why we have launched new SEND assessment resources and child development training for the early years sector. This Government’s ambition is that all children with special educational needs receive the right support to succeed in mainstream schools where possible. That is what we are focused on. It is what we are engaging with parents and professionals about. It is the change we will ensure so that children are much more likely to succeed and, as the noble Lord said, to stay in school and achieve, with all the benefits that brings for the rest of their lives.