Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent steps her Department has taken alongside local authorities to help tackle persistent absence in schools in Slough constituency.

Tackling absence is at the heart of the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity.

Thanks to the efforts of schools, absence is moving in the right direction, with children attending over 5.31 million more days this year compared to last. However, around one in five pupils are still missing 10% or more of school, which is why the department is continuing to drive further improvement.

Steps taken to improve attendance includes developing real-time data tools that allows schools to compare attendance against similar schools and enable earlier intervention as well as investing in targeted support, including £15 million to set up the attendance mentors programme supporting 10,800 pupils.

The department has also started to establish new Attendance and Behaviour Hubs, where up to 90 hubs led by schools with excellent attendance and behaviour practice will support more than 4,500 schools to improve.