First week 'critical' to avoid children missing school later, parents told

[Bloodyscarymary]

I just saw this article in the BBC and am astounded at the daft reasoning. Apparently, students who miss days in the first week of school are more likely to be persistently absent, therefore we need a critical focus on attendance in the first week to reduce absence.

I feel like someone needs to let the DfE know that correlation does not equal causation! Surely it’s just that children with factors causing absence are more likely to miss a day in the first week than children who don’t have those factors. I am pretty sure if they took a data subset from ANY week in the year, persistently absent students would be more likely to be absent in that week than non persistently absent students!

Therefore it’s not the week that’s critical, it’s the factors driving absence we need to focus on.

I am all for having a public awareness campaign but why muddy statistics like this instead of just talking about what is actually needed to solve absence.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg7jk3rr225o

DH and I both went to grammar schools, university and qualified in our profession.

I have listened to and met hundreds of parents of children of SEN, after having a child with SEN, who could never cope in mainstream. She was in special provision from age 4.

Many of the other parents I came across were also graduate professionals, whose children could not cope in mainstream either. Quite a few ended up school refusing, before either the LA or SEN tribunal agreed to special provision.

IME, middle class parents are just as likely to have children with hidden SEN, as working class parents - and share some of their children’s traits, but they are able to function well enough in society to become professionals. Attendance per se has nothing to do with genetic conditions!