Tag Archives: pupil absence

Why do children in London want to go to school?

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
1

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.

Fines for parents: not main story on absences

Posted on by
Reply

Yesterday, both politicians and the media were quick to latch onto the significant increase in the number of parents being fined for taking their offspring out of school during term-time to go on holiday in the data about absences published by the DfE.

Now, I won’t argue that this makes for good headlines, and is an interesting issue to discuss, and I will say more at a later point in this blog, if space allows. However, I don’t think it is the main story to emerge from the DfE’s data https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/pupil-absence-in-schools-in-england-2017-to-2018

For me, the story that should feature in the headlines is that almost one in six pupils living in the most deprived IDACI areas were classified last year as persistent absentees. (The Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI) measures the proportion of all children aged 0 to 15 living in income deprived families. IDACI bands are based on 2015 IDACI scores. Further information on IDACI scores may be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/english-indices-of-deprivation) that’s some 150,000 pupils out of 936,975 pupils. The percentage has been worsening each year since the new definition was introduced for persistent absentees some three years ago.

 

Pupil absence by Income Deprivation –percentages of persistent absentees (number of persistent absentees expressed as a percentage of the total number of enrolments.
2015/16 2016/17 2017/18 Change 2015/2016 to 2017/18 % change
0-10% Most deprived 15.3 15.7 16.0 0.7 5%
10-20% 13.6 13.9 14.3 0.7 5%
20-30% 12.4 12.8 13.1 0.7 6%
30-40% 11.4 11.7 12.0 0.6 5%
40-50% 10.4 10.6 11.0 0.6 6%
50-60% 9.1 9.4 9.8 0.7 8%
60-70% 8.2 8.5 8.8 0.6 7%
70-80% 7.2 7.4 7.9 0.7 10%
80-90% 6.4 6.6 7.1 0.7 11%
90-100% Least deprived 5.3 5.5 5.8 0.5 9%
Data uses IDACI decile of pupil residence

 

Now, it is true that the percentage of persistent absentees has increased in all IDACI deciles over the three years, but the relationship between the percentages of persistent absentees to IDACI band has remained constant.

The least deprived communities have always had the lowest percentage of persistent absentees, and the most deprived communities the highest figures. Now, it would be interesting to see these figures by year group, especially with the discussions about knife crime and its relationship to both exclusions and truancy. If that one in six overall in our most deprived communities is say, one in four in years 10 and 11, the government really ought to rethink the secondary school curriculum and its effects on the 50% of pupils not destined for higher education at age eighteen. Do we really want to alienate so many young people from our education system?

On the issue of term-time holidays, and the response to the Supreme Court judgement that altered the terms of the contract between the State and parents, there is a political decision to be made as to whether to accept the Court’s ruling or change the law?

In the table above it is obvious that although still small percentages, the percentages have been rising fasted among the least deprived groups, presumably as a result, at least in part, of more term-time holidays.