Schools are to have specific attendance goals set to address the learning setbacks caused by the pandemic. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson is unveiling a strategy for schools to enhance efforts in bringing students back to classrooms.
A significant portion of schools are still struggling to boost their attendance rates. Starting this month, each school will receive AI-driven minimum attendance improvement objectives to ensure students are present and prepared for academic success.
The Attendance Baseline Improvement Expectation (ABIE) will be tailored to each school’s circumstances, such as location, student requirements, and socio-economic factors. Schools will be compared against similar demographic institutions, with progress tracking not tied to formal accountability measures. These targets will remain confidential and inaccessible to Ofsted.
Rather than for accountability purposes, performance against the targets will guide support allocation through Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence (RISE) teams. The initiative coincides with the launch of 36 new Attendance and Behavior Hubs offering personalized support to students.
However, teaching unions have expressed reservations about additional targets increasing pressure on already strained schools. Phillipson emphasized the importance of school attendance for children’s opportunities, calling on schools to elevate attendance levels beyond pre-pandemic standards.
Before the pandemic, the overall absence rate was 4.7%, which rose to 7.6% in the 2021/22 academic year. The number of persistently absent students, missing over 10% of school days, nearly doubled post-pandemic. While the Labour party has made progress, they aim to return to pre-pandemic attendance levels.
School leaders’ union NAHT’s General Secretary, Paul Whiteman, noted schools’ ongoing efforts to boost attendance and stressed the need for practical resources over additional targets. The Association of School and College Leaders’ General Secretary, Pepe Di’Iasio, urged the government to consider the real challenges schools face and provide dedicated attendance support rather than imposing more targets.
Di’Iasio proposed assigning dedicated school attendance officers to collaborate with families, addressing barriers to attendance and offering necessary support. Schools, already facing budget constraints and staffing shortages, would benefit more from practical assistance than new improvement targets adding burdens without resolving underlying issues.
