Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what initiatives and programmes they are pursuing to tackle the problem of pupil absenteeism, and what evaluation of the effectiveness of each of these programmes is being undertaken.

Improving attendance is one of the department’s top priorities. The department has published the ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance, encouraging all schools and local authorities to adopt the practices of the most effective schools. A link to the guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-improve-school-attendance. All schools are now expected to publish an attendance policy and appoint an attendance champion. Local authorities are expected to meet termly with schools to agree individual plans for children at risk of absenteeism. The department’s attendance hubs now support 800 schools benefiting over 400,000 pupils.

The department has deployed 10 expert attendance advisers to work with trusts and all local authorities to review practices, develop plans to improve and meet expectations set out in the guidance.

To help identify children at risk of persistent absence and to enable early intervention, the department has established a timelier flow of pupil level attendance data through the daily attendance data collection. This also enables analysis to local authority level of trends in different types of absence by characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, children on free school meals, those with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. The data is made available to schools, trusts and local authorities to pupil level via a secure interactive dashboard. 87% of schools subscribe to the tool to spot at risk pupils. ​Recent data show that the department is making progress, with around 380,000 fewer children persistently not in school in 2022/23 compared to 2021/22.

The department has also commissioned an attendance mentoring programme to build the evidence base on what works to improve school attendance. The programme is a £2.3 million pilot over three years across five Priority Education Investment Areas (Doncaster, Knowsley, Middlesbrough, Salford, Stoke-on-Trent), supported by a detailed evaluation. Findings from the first-year evaluation are expected to be published in early 2024.