Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the impact of living in a low income household on rates of school absences.

The department publishes absence data for pupils broken down by pupil characteristic. This includes data for pupils who are eligible for free school meals (FSM). The latest absence data can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/pupil-absence-in-schools-in-england-autumn-2023-and-spring-2024.

To support the educational outcomes of disadvantaged pupils, pupil premium funding in the 2024/25 financial year has increased to over £2.9 billion. Pupil premium funding is allocated to eligible schools based on the number of pupils who are recorded as eligible for FSM or have been recorded as eligible in the past six years (referred to as Ever 6 FSM), as well as children who are looked after by the local authority or have been adopted from care or left care. In line with the pupil premium ‘menu of approaches’, schools can spend their pupil premium on evidence-based strategies to support attendance.

More broadly, the department’s ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ statutory guidance sets clear expectations that where pupils face additional barriers which affect their attendance, schools should work with these families and put support in place to help them to attend. Where the barriers are outside of the school’s control, all local partners should work together to support pupils and parents to access support to ensure regular attendance. The guidance can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66bf300da44f1c4c23e5bd1b/Working_together_to_improve_school_attendance_-_August_2024.pdf.