Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made an assessment of truancy rates in (a) primary and (b) secondary schools in (i) Coventry, (ii) Coventry North East constituency and (iii) the West Midlands in each of the last six years; and what steps she is taking to reduce truancy rates in England and Wales.

The Department does not collect information on truancy rates in schools.

Pupil absence information, including authorised and unauthorised absence, is published at school, local authority, regional and national level in the ‘Pupil absence in schools in England: 2014 to 2015’ National statistics release[1]. Parliamentary constituency level information is not available.

The Government is clear that children’s attendance at school is non-negotiable and we will take the necessary steps to secure it. It is for schools to determine how they address poor attendance using the range of measures available to them, such as parenting contracts and parenting orders, or penalty notices for unauthorised absence. These measures are used to reinforce parents’ responsibilities and to support them in improving their child’s attendance at school. This policy applies to England only as education is a devolved matter.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/pupil-absence-in-schools-in-england-2014-to-2015