Tag Archives: attendance

Do children attend school?

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The latest DfE repot of parent and student views contains some data that are at odds with the general perception of schooling. The data on attendance in the ‘voice’ results are so at odds with the general perception that it raises questions about who completes this sort of questionnaire. Parent, pupil and learner voice: May 2025 – GOV.UK

Generally, the perception is that fewer children are attending school on a regular basis. But here is the DfE’s evidence from their survey.

Across previous academic years, the proportions of pupils and learners who said they had been to school every day or most days were:

WaveKey stage 3 pupilsKey stage 4 pupils16-19 pupils and learners
2025-0596%95%84%
2025-0395%93%92%
2024-0997%96%–
2024-0395%95%–
2023-1296%94%

And for the parents the data are even more out of line with reality

Across previous academic years, the proportions of parents who said that their child had been to school every day or most days were:

WavePrimary parentsSecondary parentsSpecial parents
2025-0599%95%93%
2024-0998%96%91%
2024-0398%95%93%
2023-1299%95%91%

Would that 99% of primary pupils attended school that often. The reduction of only one per cent for the secondary sector parents between September 2024 and May 2025, from 96% to 95% even with sample sizes of more than 3,000 for both pupils and parents does seem a little out of line with the views coming from schools more generally about attendance.

Sickness or study leave were the two reasons given most frequently for absence by pupils and learners, followed by other reasons, where 16-19s had the highest percentage at 30%. Interestingly, 6% of the 16-19 cited the cost of travel, something this blog has highlighted as an issue.

Percentages for bullying s a reason for absence were low, at 5% of KS3, and 3% of KS4 pupils, compared with one per cent of KS3 parents, but 8% of KS4 parents: a big difference between pupil and parent responders.

Similarly, only 4% of KS3, and 3% of KS4 pupils, cited suspension or exclusion as reasons for missing school. Interestingly no parents of KS3 pupils, but 5% of KS4 pupils, cited suspension or exclusion as a reason for missing school.  

Tables 8 & 9 of the Technical Document on the Methodology contain the information about the percentage of parents and pupils that completed each wave, although no other information about their characteristics is forthcoming. This is despite the careful sampling frame developed to take account of a large number of different variables.  Parent, Pupil and Learner Voice Technical Report: September 2025

This does raise the question around who completes questionnaires and might the missing groups have had different responses? I cannot help but wonder whether the issue of response rates might have been more prominently discussed.  However, we all know persuading those sent questionnaires to return them is always a tricky task, so any responses are better than none.

A new model for schooling?

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Public First have today published an interesting report on the ‘collapse’ in school attendance.

Here are the headline conclusions. ATTENDANCE-REPORT-V02.pdf (publicfirst.co.uk)

“Quite simply, too many children are currently missing school to the extent that it affects the continuity of their learning. Disadvantaged pupils who most need the security, stability and care that good schools offer, are most likely to be persistently absent – and the gap is widening. The current data points to a full-blown national crisis – and this report’s findings help to explain why.

The link between attendance and attainment is well known. Sporadic attendance impacts children’s academic results, mental health and resilience. Those who take an occasional day (or a week, or a fortnight) off school miss building blocks of knowledge. Catching up is a treadmill that becomes unmanageable and so their learning is fractured.”

The most worrying aspect of the report is that “Disadvantaged pupils are most likely to be persistently absent.” This raises a number of questions for policymakers at both national and local levels.

How do we reset the link between education and society so that the disadvantaged see the benefits of schooling, both at the formative stage of a child’s early years and the foundation stage and also later in their approach to adulthood and the world beyond schooling.

I thought the change to patterns of schooling might come with the third wave of the IT revolution, and be driven by middle class attitudes to a pattern of schooling that has changed little over the past half century. However, Public First point to a different picture, and one where urgent action is needed to reconnect with a group in society that seemingly no longer sees the value in schooling.

Government’s have tried the stick, but this group are often impervious to fines, as they don’t have the money to pay them, and it is not worth the costs of chasing them. With a criminal justice service no longer fully functional at a local level, more draconian actions seem like tilting at windmills; a waste of effort. Rather, is it time for a campaign to win hearts and minds. Insert schooling into the most viewed soaps and TV programmes. Find and use the influences of this group in society; footballers, singers; personalities.

The education service must become more welcoming. During the recent hot spell, some school leaders put discipline before compassion and ordered winter uniforms to be worn. Is this a time for such strict action or for a different approach?

Should schools with good attendance records help fund those that need to reengage with parents, and does our fractures system enable best use of resources to meet this challenge of selling education to those that may well benefit the most from what it has to offer?

As a teacher in the 1970s, I know that some children rarely attended school, and were often disruptive when present. I welcomed their absence then. These days, I take a wider view: but forcing children into school without recognising the needs of schools as well as of parents is to deal with only one part of the problem. Please do read Public First’s report

Why do children in London want to go to school?

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Last week, the DfE published some interesting data on attendance during the autumn and spring terms s of the past few years. The figures, as the DfE acknowledges, are affected by the progress of the covid pandemic. Nevertheless, it is interesting to look at the 2021/22 autumn and spring term data for overall absence as measured by local authority. The data are for upper-tier authorities, so in the remaining ‘shire counties’ it isn’t possible to drill down to district council level. Such data would be especially interesting as it would allow better comparisons between district and unitary councils and the urban borough of London and the Metropolitan areas. Pupil absence in schools in England: autumn and spring terms, Autumn and Spring Term 2021/22 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk)

Even with out this data, the dominance of the London boroughs in the table as ranked by lowest levels of absence is very plain to see.  Only Trafford and Bracknell Forest break in to the list of the top 25 local authorities with the lowest overall absence rates for autumn 2021 and spring 2022 terms, a fact demonstrated by the regional data in the table below. Camden seems to be something of an outlier in the London data with rates for overall absence well about the average for its companion boroughs.

Absence rates by region, autumn and spring terms 2021/22
 Overall absence rateRate of sessions recorded as not attending due to COVID circumstancesPercentage of persistent absentees – 10% or more sessions missed
North East7.90%1.10%24.30%
North West7.30%1.20%22.30%
Yorkshire and The Humber7.60%1.20%23.00%
East Midlands7.40%1.30%22.10%
West Midlands7.60%1.40%23.30%
East of England7.50%1.50%23.00%
South East7.40%1.60%22.20%
South West8.00%1.40%24.70%
Inner London6.30%1.30%18.70%
Outer London6.40%1.20%18.80%
Source: DfE

Inner London, has the lowest overall absence rate for the period, followed by the Outer London boroughs. The South West, a region with no real urban outside of the Bristol Region, had the worst overall absence rate, ahead of even the North East that featured in my recent post about unauthorised absences this September. Absent without leave | John Howson (wordpress.com)

The DfE’s data on overall absence covers primary, secondary and special schools and it would be interesting to see the data by sector for each local authority. Are the areas where the DfE has pupped in extra funds performing better than those with just the National Funding Formula and high Needs block to rely upon? Although above the regional average, the percentage figure for Blackpool is by no means the worst in the North West, so hopefully, the funding is making a difference.

As might be expected, the overall absence rate for the secondary sector at 9.2% in Spring Term 2021/22 was higher than in the primary sector, where it was 6.7%. Both included a 1% figure for covid related absences. In 2018/19, before the pandemic, the secondary sector recorded an overall absence rate of 5.6% and the primary sector a rate of 4.1%. Not surprisingly, it seemed easier to encourage primary school pupils back into school after the pandemic.

Ensuring pupils are back in school must be the first step on the recovery in learning, and there must be thoughts about the missing adolescents and how they can be encouraged to start learning again. Might that affect judgements about future funding, or will the government write off these young people and their learning?

Absent without leave

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The DfE has an experimental dashboard recording weekly pupil absence data for overall absence and authorized and unauthorized absences at the local authority level. https://department-for-education.shinyapps.io/pupil-attendance-in-schools/ So far, the dashboard has data from 14,580 schools for the 30th of September data.

I have just extracted one list from the dashboard. This is the25 local authority areas with the highest percentages of unauthorized absences in the secondary school sector.

YearWeek beginningLocal authorityAbsenceAuthorisedUnauthorised
202226/09/2022Middlesbrough11.60%4.60%7.10%
202226/09/2022Knowsley11.00%4.50%6.50%
202226/09/2022Isle of Wight11.50%5.90%5.70%
202226/09/2022Sunderland10.20%4.70%5.50%
202226/09/2022Salford9.60%4.10%5.50%
202226/09/2022Hartlepool9.40%3.90%5.40%
202226/09/2022Stoke-on-Trent9.90%4.60%5.40%
202226/09/2022Newcastle upon Tyne10.20%4.90%5.30%
202226/09/2022Gateshead10.70%5.70%5.10%
202226/09/2022Bradford9.80%4.90%4.90%
202226/09/2022Doncaster10.10%5.40%4.70%
202226/09/2022Newham7.80%3.00%4.70%
202226/09/2022Sheffield8.20%3.50%4.70%
202226/09/2022Liverpool9.80%5.30%4.50%
202226/09/2022Kingston upon Hull, City of9.50%5.10%4.30%
202226/09/2022Stockton-on-Tees8.70%4.40%4.30%
202226/09/2022Rochdale8.90%4.70%4.10%
202226/09/2022Blackpool8.70%4.60%4.10%
202226/09/2022Leeds8.40%4.30%4.10%
202226/09/2022Rotherham8.90%4.80%4.10%
202226/09/2022Calderdale9.30%5.40%3.80%
202226/09/2022Barnsley9.30%5.50%3.80%
202226/09/2022Coventry8.70%5.00%3.70%
202226/09/2022County Durham9.70%6.00%3.70%
202226/09/2022Sandwell7.30%3.60%3.60%
Absence rates by geographical area -worst 25 for the end of September 2022

What is striking is the geographical spread of authorities. None in the South West, East of England and East Midlands and only one each in London and the South East. So, from five of the nine regions of England there are just two local authority areas in the list. Whereas the North East contributes more than five authorities to the list, although only two of the five local authority areas heading up the list.

Now, it may be that schools in some areas take different views about what constitutes authorized or unauthorized absences even though there are well-defined categories. Some may also be better at recording data. However, there is another similarity with the areas in the list. Most are areas with either significant pockets or in some cases even larger areas of deprivation within the geographical area.

Some, such as Blackpool, have been Opportunity Areas under previous government schemes to support education. Seven areas had more than 10% of secondary school pupils not in school at the end of September. Such a level of absence might be understandable either later in the year or during the depth of winter, but so early in the school year it is troubling.

Many of these areas have high unemployment levels and would seem to be targets for areas of growth. However, the skills base won’t be there to develop if the education of a proportion of pupils is so disrupted.

Might the current curriculum have something to do with the decision by these pupils to stay away? Government still looks more favorably on training teachers for EBacc subjects than for more directly vocational areas such as business studies.

Interestingly, most of these areas are not ones with significant teacher recruitment issues.

Who have schools been kept open for?

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Coronavirus (COVID-19) attendance in education and early years settings – summary of returns. The DfE has today published a summary of four weeks’ of the educational establishment data up to 4pm on Friday 17 April 2020. This includes the Easter Bank holiday days when, of course, very few children used the school facilities available. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-attendance-in-education-and-early-years-settings

Picking the headlines form the returns the DfE state that

  • The attendance rate among pupils in educational establishments was around 1% during the week commencing 13 April 2020, which would have usually been part of the Easter holidays for most schools. Attendance was initially above 3% in the week commencing 23 March 2020.
  • The number of teachers in attendance has also fallen since then, suggesting that establishments are adapting to lower numbers of pupils and the latest advice on social distancing.
  • It was estimated on 16 April that 65,000 children were attending early years childcare – about 4% of the number of children who usually attend childcare in term time.

12,800 establishments provided a response to the DfE survey on Friday 17 April. This represents 52% of all establishments. The key findings were adjusted by the DfE for non-response (the report includes a note on the methodology for dealing with non-response and scaling up):

  • 61% of establishments were open – around 15,100 establishments. This has been stable during the most recent two weeks, having decreased since the first week of partial closures (when around 19,000 were open).
  • The most recent data suggests around 84,000 children attended an educational establishment on Friday 17 April, representing 0.9% of pupils who normally attend. Our analysis suggests that attendance on Monday 23 March was over 3% and that the attendance rate gradually fell – reaching 1.3% on Monday 30 March then 0.9% on Monday 6 April. Attendance during the following two weeks remained stable. This two week period of lower attendance corresponds with the Easter break, although for some parts of the country this would have started on 30 March and so attendance may increase from 20 April. In general, attendance has been higher mid-week.

24,000 of the children in attendance on Friday 17 April were classed by schools as vulnerable, down from 29,000 on Friday 3 April. We estimate this represents around 5% of all children and young people classified as ‘Children in Need’ or who have an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP).

  • 62,000 of the children in attendance on Friday 17 April were classed by schools as children of critical workers, down from 85,000 on Friday 3 April. We estimate that this represents around 2% of all children of critical workers, down from around 3% on 3 April.
  • These were cared for by 59,000 teaching staff and 43,000 non-teaching staff. The number of teachers in attendance continues to fall having been around five times this figure at the start of the first week of partial closures, suggesting that establishments are adapting to lower numbers of pupils and the latest advice on social distancing.

This is an impressive report to be produced so quickly. Sadly, we cannot tell from this report whether certain parts of the country are doing better than others at managing the education scene in these different and difficult times as the data is solely for England as a whole at this stage.

No doubt, the DfE that is calling local authorities on a regular basis, and presumably the larger MATs and diocese as well, now has a handle on what is going well in some parts of the country, and where there are still issues.

Officers, CEOs of MATs and headteachers will now be thinking about how the structure of a return to a post-modern world in the real sense of the term will be handled. The last thing we want or need is schools becoming transfer sites for the virus, and a spike in patients working in education settings because of a poorly thought through return to school.

One question also now emerging is; show Year 10 and Year 12 pupils be required or offered a chance to repeat the year that they will have missed nearly half of? If so, how can it be handled?

Young people in custody: all too depressing

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At the beginning of August, the DfE together with the Ministry of Justice, published what is described as ‘a joint experimental statistics report’ on ‘Understanding the educational background of young offenders’. The report makes depressing, but possibly not unexpected reading. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/understanding-the-educational-background-of-young-offenders-summary-report

The results are from a data sharing project between the DfE and the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), conducted in 2015. The analysis is of those young offenders sentenced in 2014 matched to DfE data.

Not all young people with the observed characteristics either offend or, if offending, are sentenced to one or more periods of custody. There is no causal relationship between any lack of education progress and offending, but those that offend are more likely than not to have below average educational outcomes regardless of their actual ability.

This lack of educational progress, although apparent by the end of Key Stage 2 for the cohort studied in this exercise, is magnified when students reach secondary school. The largest gap between the outcome for all pupils and those that became young offenders was in ‘writing’ at Key Stage 2 and the smallest gap was in ‘reading at this Key Stage.

By Key Stage4, although the majority of young offenders in the study did achieve a pass in something at Key Stage 4, no more than 7%  of young person sent into custody achieved 5 A*-Cs including English and mathematics, using the grading then in place for these subjects. The most depressing figure is that just one per cent of the 399 individuals sent into a short period of custody achieved the 5 A*-Cs outcome including English and mathematics.

A third of young offenders receiving custody of longer than twelve months when age 16 or 17 on their sentence date were ‘looked after children’ on the 31st March 2014.

Even more depressing is the very high percentages of young offenders with a record of persistent absence from school, presumably mostly in their secondary school careers. Apart from those sentenced to Referral Orders and Cautions that are likely to be first time entrants into the criminal justice system, all other categories had more than 90% of the group with a record of persistent absence, peaking at 94% for those with custodial sentences of less than six months. This group also top the percentage that had been subject to a permanent exclusion.

At the period this study was undertaken ‘off-rolling’ and home educating of Key Stage 4 pupils was not a significant feature of secondary schools. However, it would be interesting to know the percentage of young people ‘off-rolled’ that enter the criminal justice system at the present time.

Schools and colleges are currently facing financial challenges, and it is worrying that the figures in this report come from a period when schools were better, even if not adequately, funded.

Interestingly, this report does not include either regional data or data about the ethnicity of the offenders. One can assume, however, that most are young men as the number of young women sent into custody is generally very low.

Hopefully, this report will inspire the new Ministerial team in the DfE to address how the education of this group of young people can be improved and the use of custody reduced.

 

 

 

 

Good news on absence rates

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More than a quarter of pupils in primary and secondary schools didn’t take any time off from school during the autumn term of 2018 according to recent DfE figures https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/pupil-absence-in-schools-in-england-autumn-term-2018

The most common reasons for absence was reported as illness, followed by attendance at medical, dental or presumably opticians appointments (although this last one isn’t specified). Could more be done to look at how these appointments are organised, particularly for certain key year groups? Should receptionists be required to ask the Year Group of a child when booking an appointment and recognise the importance of certain times in a young person’s education and, if possible, take this into account?

Overall absence rates for 2018 were lower than in either of the previous two years, at 71.6% of enrolments, compared with 74.3% in 2016. Of course, last winter was relatively mild and not especially wet across most of England, and the weather may play a part in determining the level of these figures. It must be easier to go to school when the sun is out than on a cold foggy morning if you feel a bit down and are faced with the prospect of wait at the bus stop in the drizzle.

It might be interesting to see if there is any correlation with the weather and days of the week and absence rates?

The dates of specific religious festivals that move around the calendar obviously have an effect upon attendance rates, as these figures show. In 2016, such absences counted for a notable amount of the authorised absences, whereas in 2018 the figure was negligible.

Holidays in term time remain contentious, with the percentage of unauthorised such holiday several times higher than the agreed holidays figure. Such unauthorised holidays are more common in the primary sector, when family structures and children’s ages presumably make the desire for a family holiday greater than during the period when pressure on studying for exams is greater.

However, it would be interesting to see a figure for voluntary attendance on Saturdays to counter balance this negative view of time lost by pupils. I am increasingly overwhelmed by the number of pupils and teachers that take time to attend when they don’t have to do so. This despite the obvious concerns over teacher workload. Again, this voluntary service needs more notice than it receives outside of the profession.

Next time someone talks of the long holidays that teachers have, ask them when they last went into work on a Saturday or did a voluntary extra shift to help their customers?

There is still a worrying percentage of pupils being excluded with no alternative provision being made, even in the autumn term. Regional School Commissioners need to ask academies how much they are contributing to this figure.

Finally, after two years when the number was on the increase, there was a welcome fall in the number of pupils classified as persistent absentees. At 10.9% of enrolments it still marks a waste of talent and is helping to store up problems for the future. But, at least the figure is lower than in both 2016 and 2017.

 

 

Absence rates are still a concern in some schools

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Earlier today the DfE published the results of the data collected about pupils’ absence from school during the autumn term of 2017 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/pupil-absence-in-schools-in-england-autumn-term-2017 Not a lot had changed since the previous autumn term and the overall picture has remained broadly at the same level now for three years. However, as the DfE concede, – levels of authorised absence have decreased, while the levels of unauthorised absence has increased.

For state-funded primary and secondary schools, the authorised absence rate decreased from 3.3 per cent in autumn 2016 to 3.2 per cent in autumn 2017 and the unauthorised absence rate increased from 1 per cent in autumn 2016 to 1.1 per cent in autumn 2017. Part of the increase was down to the fact that that the level of absence among persistent absentees rose slightly from 11.4 per cent in autumn 2016 to 11.5 per cent in autumn 2017.

Illness is the most common reason for absence and heavily influences overall absence rates.  It accounted for 58.3 per cent of all absence in autumn 2017, a lower proportion than seen in previous years; it was 58.4 per cent in autumn 2016 and 58.8 per cent in 2015. This variation from autumn term to autumn term can be the result of winter illness patterns and in particular whether the flu season starts early or not. The level of absence for religious reasons is also variable from year to year; depending upon when major moveable festivals appear in the calendar. In 2017, there were some dates that fell outside of term time and that reduced the number of days pupils were absent.

Authorised family holidays are now very largely a thing of the past, but there is still an upward trend in days lost to unauthorised holidays, albeit the increase from the previous year was relatively slight. For some families the fine can be seen as just another expense as part of the overall holiday costs and if the holiday price is cheaper in term time there may actually be a cash saving even if it can affect a child’s education.

Interestingly, just over a quarter of pupils had no recorded absence in the autumn term. However, the trend towards not arriving on time is gathering pace, with 266,905 recorded occurrences. Not a huge number, but the highest figure for the past few years.

I fear 14-18 schools frequently seem to appear close to the top of the list of schools with well above average absence rates. In Oxfordshire, three of the eight schools with the worst overall absence rates are 14-18 schools. I need to check whether there are issues about how some pupil activities in these schools are recorded. Otherwise, it seems likely that turning schools into academies hasn’t proved a magic bullet in terms of curing high levels of absence: leadership is, I suspect, much more important than school organisation in bringing down absence rates. It might be worth asking MATs how much of their central funds are aimed at reducing absence rates in schools where it might be an issue?

Absence trend still downward

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Yesterday the DfE issued its annual statistical bulletin on school attendance and absence rates. You can read it at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/561152/SFR51_2016_text.pdf There are also accompanying tables detailing information at local authority and even at individual school levels, but you might have to do a bit of cross-checking with Edubase to identify school names this year.

Generally, overall rate remained stable. The overall rates are heavily influenced by illness, so either a bad winter with lots of flu and other illnesses or a mild illness free winter can affect the figures in one direction or the other. The bulletin notes that

“The overall absence rate across state-funded primary and secondary schools decreased slightly from 4.5 per cent in autumn/spring 2014/15 to 4.4 per cent in autumn/spring 2015/16. The overall absence rate in primary schools decreased from 4.0 per cent to 3.9 per cent and the rate in secondary schools decreased from 5.2 per cent to 5.0 per cent. The decrease in overall absence has been driven by a decrease in the authorised absence rate across state-funded primary and secondary schools – which fell from 3.6 per cent to 3.4 per cent between autumn/spring 2014/15 and autumn/spring 2015/16.”

The various rows about term-time holidays doesn’t seem to have overly affected these figures. Family holidays not sanctioned by the school accounted for 0.2% of absences compared with over 66% as a result of illness and the rate hadn’t changed from the previous year.

There is good news for the government on the drive to force down persistent absenteeism. However, one in ten pupils still missed 10% of more of schooling. In secondary schools this rose to nearly one pupil in every eight at 12.3%. This group are no doubt reflected in the under-performing students at GCSE. Sadly, 20% of pupils on Free School Meals were persistent absentees compared with only 8.2% of other pupils. Engaging these pupils with learning from an early age is still a key priority and the best way to close the gap in performance.

There is still much work to be undertaken with Pupil Referral Units where, perhaps not surprisingly, absence rates are still very high. In view of the reasons why pupils end up in PRUs this isn’t surprising, but more attention needs to be paid to this group. The Treasury might ask whether the wider benefits to society of re-engaging these young people with learning might be worth the spending involved in the short-term, especially if it could help identify what would reduce the entry numbers. A review of the effects of the EBacc orientated curriculum on these pupils before they are dispatched to a PRU might be worth the investment, although many would be willing to provide an answer now.

As in past years, Studio Schools and UTCs feature disproportionally in the top 20 secondary schools for absence rates. In view of the fact that Years 10 & 11 are years of high absence this isn’t perhaps totally surprising but it does raise the question of why some pupils have been persuade to move at the end of Year 9. A new start of a blessed release?

A holiday tax

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The news from the Ministry of Justice, obtained be the Press Association under a FoI request, that there has been a steep rise in prosecutions for non-attendance at school is concerning. The increase has been linked variously to the increase in pupil numbers and to the stricter rules introduced last year about taking pupils away from school during term time to go on a family holiday. Commentators have noted that the current level of the fixed penalty fine is less than the savings a family can obtain by going on holiday in term time. To that extent it amounts to a tax on those earners who can afford to pay yet still make the savings.

However, there is a deeper issue here that relates to many of the rules established in order to run our school system; some still dating from the nineteenth century. For instance, the rules about pupils eligible for free transport and the nature of ‘safe routes’ pupils can walk date back into the mists of time. They are also not applied uniformly across the country, with parents in London receiving a much more generous deal that their rural counterparts. Maybe, the DfE should set up a Commission to review all these rules and how they help create an effective school system for the twenty-first century.

On the vexed question of holidays in term time, I have two suggestions to make. Firstly, no holiday should be allowed during the first year a pupil is at school. Based upon attendance during that year, pupils will good attendance records can be allowed up to two weeks in the following year. This provides an incentive for attendance and recognises that a child going on holiday one year would not be eligible the following year and would need to earn the opportunity in the subsequent year through continued good attendance.

Secondly, I would suggest to Mr Gove that trials for non-attendance are just the sort of cases that could be used to try out a scheme for magistrates’ court hearings in local buildings. The closure of so many courts, and the proposed closure of many more, mean both parents and officers prosecuting cases often now have to travel considerable distances and then wait around for the case to be heard. I am sure that this encourages ‘no shows’ on the part of parents that hope to drag out the proceedings for as long as possible.

As an incentive, trails for non-attendance held locally, in say town council offices, could be exempt from the bizarre Criminal Court Charge that apparently imposes a fee of £520 on a parent that turns up and pleads ‘not guilty’ but only imposes a fee of £150 if they don’t bother to attend and the prosecutions still has to prove the case in absence. This Charge is on top of court fines and costs.

There is no more risk in dealing with these cases in local public buildings that in hearing transport to school appeals. The alternative would be to removal the criminal sanction from a failure to send children to school, but since the courts apparently sent 18 parents to prison for the offence such a move might spark a wider debate about the use of custody.