Parents to be asked to solve school attendance crisis

[noblegiraffe]

There is an article in the Times about the current school attendance crisis. It cannot be overstated how awful the attendance crisis is. Pupils, particularly disadvantaged pupils, are staying away from school in much larger numbers, and for more days than before covid.

It says that lockdowns broke the contract between parents and schools which said that school attendance was compulsory.

It blames parents for keeping their children home when they have a minor illness or are slightly anxious about school.

It quotes Bridget Phillipson, Shadow Education Secretary as saying "If I were secretary of state, I’d be sending a very clear message to parents that every day at school matters, and that irresponsible parents who don’t care about sending their kids to school are harming other kids’ life chances, not just their own"

(Whereas current Education Secretary Gillian) "Keegan will expand a programme that gives children skipping school an attendance mentor who could drive or walk youngsters from their home to school in the morning or negotiate with head teachers on their behalf. She said: “Persistent absence is a hangover from the pandemic affecting schools around the world. Schools and the government cannot do this alone.

“Families play a big part in attendance and parents have a legal duty to make sure their children are at school. I know it can be hard to get children out of the door, especially when they are feeling a bit anxious or have a mild cough or cold, so we must rebuild the social contract between parents and schools and make sure everyone plays their part.”

While lockdowns are brought up, what is not mentioned is the utter state schools were in between lockdowns and after lockdowns. Children were being supervised in halls rather than being taught due to lack of teachers who were ill (and this is still happening now due to inability to recruit). Lack of teachers meaning that kids get endless cover which can be largely a waste of time. Children who are anxious about attending school are expected to get on with it while teachers who are unable to cope with the poor behaviour of students are signed off with stress. The experience of children in schools during and since covid can be extraordinarily shit.

Attendance is much lower in pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. Child poverty is not mentioned - I was reading about a child who couldn't attend school because her mother needed to use the one pair of shoes they shared. Other children are needed to look after younger siblings while parents work because they can't afford childcare. How will this be solved by sending a car around?

But we also know that schools in disadvantaged areas are more likely to struggle to hire staff. What is the point in a child attending school when they don't have teachers? How will Keegan and Phillipson argue that one?

This bit is the most worrying:

"A Labour government, Phillipson said, would place more emphasis on absenteeism as part of the Ofsted inspection framework, with schools compelled to produce an annual report on attendance, off-rolling (removing a pupil without using a permanent exclusion) and safeguarding. Schools are required to submit weekly attendance records to the Department for Education but absenteeism does not have its own Ofsted criteria, instead falling under a broader category of “behaviour and attitudes”.
These reports would affect the Ofsted rating given to schools, which would also take into account the progress they have made in shrinking the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their more affluent peers"

Linking an Ofsted grading to attendance will just doom schools in disadvantaged areas to low Ofsted grades at a time when Ofsted had just started to recognise that grading a school based on disadvantage was a bad idea.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/1d7eb40d-c4c4-4dcc-85ea-ad6f62c65b9c?shareToken=6c4b865c0c1b8626f2761a5ad733b608

it could be debated that it seems modern schooling seems more focused on creating average intelligence people, that are smart enough to run the factories etc but not good enough to govern the population overall

Attainment dropped and a bunch of kids got mental health problems so probably best avoided on a national scale. Obviously some kids did well with learning online but as a general project it was a failure.

fair points but then if modern in person schooling also contributes to various issues, then what about the lesser of the two options could be better retooled for society ? after all the Three R's just does not seem the priority unless you just want workers to run and staff the factories.

Bring the school leaving age back down to 16 and let them go to work. 18 is a ridiculous age to be in compulsory education

Good news to read that schools will need to produce figures for children they have forcefully off-rolled. Ofsted and the LA view off-rolling as an issue with the school leadership and look disapprovingly on it. Schools also need to use their initiative to rethink provisions and how they can better meet children’s needs

What about the more than slightly anxious ones!
The autistic ones who have been waiting on waiting list for years to be told their autistic but once they are told this still have to go into a school that's totally unsuitable to their needs.
Local authorities rejecting EHCP assessment requests on mass .
Schools ignoring any difficulties that are going to cost money to help because they can't afford it.
Mental health services only agreeing to see suicidal children ones they've attempted to take their own lives.
The list is endless........
So if you were the parent of my little child who's really struggling would you force her into school so that their attendance increases and pleases everyone but the child 🤷‍♀️
No thanks I need to be able to sleep at night!

Personally i prefer the "penny universities" from englands past, at least then people all wanted to learn and debate different topics etc and cover a range of intrests.

You'd think.... but schools will lie.

I see it all the time. They do it, but they 'dont'.

Awful.

Could a system or program be created, similar to how sports have talent scouts, but instead have academic scouts? These scouts would identify and select the best students from various state schools, enrolling them in various degree programs or high-intensity development programs. Upon completion of these programs, the students could then progress onto degrees in various subjects ?

Yes I know a few anxious children who have been off-rolled. The school was very sly and when challenged and denied what they had done. LA input critical in ensuring school leadership behave appropriately

Parents generally like their children to go to school locally.

regional centers for the programs or use better online learning tools with equipment provided as part of the program and have regional support staff that act as personal tutors to the individuals etc ?

This. As a parent of two SEND children, thank you for saying it so well. I battle daily for my children’s access to education and for their well being. And I am constantly having assumptions made and my parenting questioned by “professionals”. I’m a bloody good mum, it’s the system that’s shit.

I'm tired of COVID being used as an excuse. A huge part of the attendance issue is that the government has cut support for SEND pupils by huge amounts over the years. SEND children are often out of school because mainstream school can't meet their needs and in some cases school can't keep them safe. Yet there aren't enough places in specialist school.

My child is in year 6. She goes to mainstream school. She needs a dedicated 1:1 but even with the highest tier of EHCP funding school can't afford it on top of all the other interventions she has. They applied for discretionary funding and got rejected. Even with a dedicated 1:1 my daughter's needs wouldn't be met.
She needs to go to specialist school. The council refused to consult last year for year 6. I'm currently in the middle of a tribunal to fight for a place in specialist secondary school.

But even when we win the tribunal (which is pretty much a given as the LA haven't been able to provide evidence to oppose specialist), there is still no guarantee my daughter will get a place in a specialist school as there isn't enough places. And if she doesn't get a place then I can't send her to a school that cannot meet her needs or keep her safe. And if that happens, my child becomes a non attender. Even though she's maintained 94% attendance despite multiple learning difficulties, ASD, ADHD and a life threatening health condition.

I have worked so hard to make sure she attends school. School and I have worked so hard to make school a positive place that she wants to be in. But there's every chance that she won't get a specialist place and I'll have to keep her on roll at mainstream whilst home educating until she does get a place. And there's every chance that somehow I'll be to blame for the fact she isn't in school. Even though I've fought endlessly for an appropriate school placement.

Because parents don't think kids have to go to school and the latest is 'mental health days' but I do think in 50 years there will still be parents blaming covid

Covid will be a factor in a lot of cases, you can’t cause that sort of disruption to a child’s education without it having a knock on for some children. That’s not to say lockdown was wrong but it has had knock ons.

for ds educationally it didn’t cause him issues, infact he thrived - his 1-1 worked with him via teams every day so he got his own tailored curriculum and I was in a position to support that from home. Socially and emotionally though it had a massive knock on and set back years of work we had been doing with him - on that side of things we are very much still tackling the issues.

ideally though we need a system which will look at the individual and work with them to tackle the issues but that won’t happen though because too much of the system we have now is one size fits all and if the child doesn’t fit they are pushed to shape to try to fit.

Honestly if you can't be bothered to do the bare minimum and take your kids to school you really shouldn't have children, it's not fair on them

If SENDIST orders a placement your child will be attending the school ordered.Being full isn't a reason SENDIST allows to deny a place. The only accepted reasons are that it would be unsuitable for the age, ability, aptitude or SEN of the child or young person, or the attendance of the child or young person there would be incompatible with the efficient education of others or it would be an inefficient use of resources.
LA will be expected to fund whatever is necessary to allow your child to attend the named school.

Unfortunately, this isn’t something parents with issues follow. There are a multitude of reasons that parents who struggle to parent adequately have children. Equally, things happen in life that then causes parents who were parenting well to no longer parent adequately.

However, that is not the main reason children aren’t at school. One of the biggest reasons is ridiculous SEN/ALN waiting lists (4y in our area, after months of assessment and paperwork to get on it), incredibly long waits and poor support for MH and hugely underfunded services for physical health and social service support. I know several teachers who have left because they simply cannot bear constantly watching children (and families) who need help, diagnosis and support waiting for years and years while they are unable to do anything to help. Not to mention how difficult that is to manage in a class full of other children with their own needs, whether ND, struggling with mental illness or physical health or issues in the family or perfectly healthy.

I should just add that lots of children get permanently excluded from specialist schools as well as mainstream. Not quite as many granted. But the amount of part time time tables and 'offisite' activities going on at specialist which are really just a slow move to permanent exclusions rather than put in places because thats what the child needs specifically, is a large issue.

The posters posted by OP are funny, the boy with the stomach ache will vomit later in the day and school will be pissed off with his mum that she sent him in ill!!!!

Strikes are a workers right that in my opinion can't be discussed. Usually a collective go on strike because their working conditions are incorrect and the targets that they have to meet are far for reasonable. They are very disruptive and create a mess in order to push their employers to negotiate the sooner the better. However people nowadays seem them as a "take the piss" because when they happen it only transpired the salary demands and not other reasons that should be put on the table for negotiation like, too many hours, lack of personel, lack of material, vague information etc.

If we are told a collective is on a strike because they are concern about the decline in quality of the service they deliver most of the population will be empathetic and support them, but we hear they think they don't earn enough of they money we struggle to earn and we translate it in something like, "they want to earn more and work less. They are taking the piss".

Lockdown however, made a huge impact. During lockdown most of us struggle one way or another and also people that should lead by example let us down and broke the law (their own laws) repeatedly. This was seem like a huge betrayal. Parents who needed their kid to be learning found that the teaching was ridiculous, students who were going to be passing very important exams to determine their path in the future were put on stad by and a Frankenstein classification system was out in place last minute to try to fix the mess.
Parents and citizens have lost the huge respect because they were let down and lied on the face.

I have also found in my opinion that passive aggressive approach in early years like nursery etc from the school sending letters about attendance like if you were committed a crime just for not send to kid to school when the kid got chickenpox etc are disgusting. They send the letters to everyone, parents who care and parents who don't. It takes little to personalized the letter and said kiddy attendance was 85% this year but that 15% was off sick, thanks for your support, instead of the passive aggressive letter that they send that said something like, we are going to fine you and report you to SS, because you left your daughter off school some days this year. This can be read as you never got it right. If you send them you are a disgrace if you don't you are a disappointment.
The above leads people to think. If I never got it right and they are not giving a dime about anything anymore I'll do whatever I want and at least I feel better myself.

The respect is lost, in my opinion that is they main problem. It will take time to recover it because everything is still fresh and we have been treated with huge disrespect.

How to fix it, I would think that we have to start with a more human approach again to show everyone that we can make it together. Parents and teachers are in the same boat in this matter we shouldn't be rowing in opposite directions but sometimes looks like we are.

However people nowadays seem them as a "take the piss" because when they happen it only transpired the salary demands and not other reasons that should be put on the table for negotiation like, too many hours, lack of personel, lack of material, vague information etc.

We're legally not allowed to strike about those things but workload did form part of the negotiations and the govt committed to a taskforce to working on reducing workload by 5 hours a week.

Depends upon whether you're the person looking at the whole school register and seeing the swathes of G for Unauthorised Holidays last week and this coming week, combined with the I codes for the last week of term, the two week I codes where they already knew somehow on day one that their kids are going to be ill for a fortnight, the lack of phones being answered - and also know the data from the most recent data drop.

It's not the recorded as having SEND, Pupil Premium or FSM kids that are taking these holidays. Or the higher achieving ones, whatever PPs might like to claim.