Headteachers and school leaders are increasingly concerned that a ‘cultural shift’ in attitudes is causing an attendance crisis, with more pupils absent than before the Covid pandemic.
Teachers say parents are now more reluctant to send their children to school and are more resistant to efforts to boost attendance, with school leaders in England warning it could take years for national attendance figures to recover.
Specialists who spoke to the Guardian said fears around the disease had increased since the pandemic and were being driven by declining mental health support, as well as the strain on the NHS and the cost of living crisis.
Their fears are supported by Department for Education (DfE) figures showing a steady increase in authorized and unauthorized absences in state schools across England.
Secondary schools appear to be most affected, with pupils missing more than 9% of class time in the first term of the last academic year, compared with an average of around 5.4% in the five years between 2014 and 2019.
Although the illnesses represented a spike in children absent in December, when many parents were concerned about outbreaks of strep A and scarlet fever, the rate of reported unexcused absences also rose by 70%.
Sheila Mouna, headteacher of St Anne’s and Guardian Angels Catholic Primary School in east London, said while parents had become more concerned about their children going to school, others were more willing to let them stay at home after the pandemic .
“I think there’s a cultural shift with people working at home, and some people – not all – seem to think their kids are doing well at home, so that sort of thing is ingrained in some parents’ minds.
“But kids need to be outside and be with their friends and learn to socialize. It’s not just academic,” Muna said.
Stuart Locke, chief executive of Bedfordshire’s Advantage Schools academy trust, said pupil attendance was a cause for concern for all school leaders.
“I thought it was a flash. Now I think it’s an established crisis that’s going to get worse and take years to resolve,” Locke said.
“I don’t know how we’re going to fix this – it feels like there’s a shift, and it’s not unlike the early 2000s, when it was very difficult to get significant numbers of students to attend regular school.”
Locke said the DfE was aware of the national problem and was looking at policies to improve attendance, but added: “I think it will be a big challenge for all of us this year.”
Stephen Aravena, attendance and wellbeing adviser at St Anne’s, said there were pupils who would normally have “very good” attendance who were now spending days out of school, with the mental health and resilience of parents as well as children under pressure.
“The landscape has changed. Pressures like the cost of living, all these things affect families, so it’s brought a whole new set of issues to deal with. We have to find new ways to respond to that,” Aravena said.
MPs on Parliament’s education committee are due to hold an inquiry next month into rising levels of persistent absenteeism, questioning education leaders about possible causes including economic disadvantage as well as Covid.
Robin Walker, the Conservative MP who chairs the Education Select Committee, said: “Not going to school can seriously undermine a child’s education and future life chances. It is imperative that we take a nuanced and empathetic look at the reasons why absenteeism has become a growing problem.”
Stephen Morgan, shadow schools minister, said the absentee rate “should be ringing alarm bells”.
“The failures of the government’s Covid recovery scheme, plummeting student wellbeing and the growing epidemic of mental illness in our schools are leading to absenteeism, which will lead to lower attainment and lower life chances for children and young people” , he said.
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