Pupils: Absenteeism

(asked on 21st October 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of trends in the level of unexplained pupil absence in England from (a) 16 September 2021 and (b) 14 October 2021.


Answered by
Robin Walker Portrait
Robin Walker
This question was answered on 26th October 2021

Nationally, education settings are open. Attendance is mandatory for schools and strongly encouraged for nurseries. The usual rules on school attendance continue to apply, including parents’ duty to secure their child’s regular attendance at school. Our priority is for schools to deliver face-to-face, high-quality education to all pupils. The evidence is clear that being out of education can impact educational attainment, life chances, mental and physical health. As COVID-19 becomes a virus that we learn to live with, it is imperative that we reduce the disruption to children and young people’s education. Schools should work closely with other professionals, where appropriate, to support school attendance. Where pupils are not able to attend school as they are following clinical or public health advice related to COVID-19, absence will not be penalised.

To maximise attendance within schools we have a comprehensive attendance strategy that has been implemented since the beginning of this academic year to ensure that any absence because of COVID-19 is minimised, and we are continuing to closely monitor absence levels and trends to ensure a focus on attendance remains throughout the rest of this academic year. The department has acted throughout the COVID-19 outbreak to help minimise the impact on pupils’ education and provided extensive support for schools. COVID-19 has caused particular challenges for some children who may already have been disengaged from education. That is why we have been working closely with local authorities and schools to help them re-engage pupils, including providing best practice advice.

Daily on-site attendance data is collected through the educational setting status form (EdSet). EdSet monitors COVID-19 related absence specifically by design and a full breakdown on absence for all reasons is not included in the survey.

Reasons for not attending on-site, other than for COVID-19 related reasons, includes off-site educational activities, such as school trips or work experience, other authorised absences, such as non-COVID illnesses, and unauthorised absences.

More detailed absence data is collected in the termly School Census. In line with usual reporting timetable, Autumn term 2021 statistics are due to be published in mid-2022. Autumn term data is not collected daily and has different coverage and definitions to the EdSet data and so they are not directly comparable.

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