Education secretary accused of being ‘flippant’ over absent pupils in England

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The education secretary, Gillian Keegan, was accused of being “flippant” and unhelpful by school leaders, after suggesting that headteachers should personally collect absent pupils to help solve England’s “crisis” in school attendance.

Keegan told Sky News that headteachers “have a duty” to ensure that their pupils were regularly attending school, in the face of statistics showing that attendance rates in England have not returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Asked about cases of headteachers driving to pupils’ home to collect them in the mornings, Keegan said: “We all have to play our part and actually I have a number of headteachers who work with me on policy and they say that sometimes you just have to do that.

“Sometimes you have to go or you have to text the parent in the morning, sometimes you have to do whatever is possible.”

Whether that was a good use of headteachers’ time, Keegan responded: “It is a good use to have all kids in school. It’s not what we want headteachers doing all of their days. But to be honest, right now, if that works to get somebody in school, it’s worth it. If you feel left behind it makes you feel anxious.”

But school leaders rejected Keegan’s comments, with the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) saying the education secretary’s remarks “demonstrate a worrying lack of understanding of how schools operate”.

“School leaders quite obviously need to be in school leading their schools – asking them to drive around the local area collecting children is not practical, nor would it be a good use of their time,” said James Bowen, the NAHT’s assistant general secretary.

“For many years, schools had local authority teams employed to do exactly this job, but we have seen them largely disappear after a decade of cuts.

“While schools clearly have an important role to play in supporting good attendance, we should not lose sight of the basic reality that bringing children to school on time is the role of parents.”

Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “The education secretary’s suggestion that headteachers should drive around picking up pupils and bringing them into school strikes us as a flippant and unrealistic solution to a serious and complex problem.

“There is an issue with pupil attendance post-pandemic and there are complex reasons for this, particularly around rising mental health issues. This needs a concerted effort by policymakers working with the education sector to understand the problem and to provide targeted solutions and support.”

Headteachers who spoke to the Guardian said they had resorted to visiting recalcitrant or anxious pupils, and that primary school leaders in particular were often called upon to make home visits to speak with parents or encourage children to come to school.

Downing Street moved to distance itself from Keegan’s remarks, with Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson declining to repeat the suggestion, instead saying that “different schools will take different approaches” to pupil absences.

“It is right that of course headteachers are proactive in tackling this and indeed the vast majority do an excellent job in ensuring all children are regularly attending school,” the spokesperson added.

Persistent absence, where pupils have missed more than 10% or more of school sessions in a year, has increased steeply in England since the Covid pandemic in 2020. But researchers at University College London’s Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities have found that persistent absence has been more concentrated among children affected by food poverty, high levels of psychological distress or special needs.