Absences continue to blight Islington schools as data reveals ‘vulnerable’ groups have poorer attendance rates compared to their peers.
By Joe Steen
Absences continue to blight Islington schools as data reveals ‘vulnerable’ groups have poorer attendance rates compared to their peers.
The borough is neck and neck with Camden for the highest level of persistent absences (PA) of inner London authorities, with four schools above the national average. PA is when a school pupil misses more than 10 per cent of their possible school sessions, and applies to cases of both authorised and unauthorised absences. Islington schools also had the most cases of ‘severe’ cases of PA, where pupils miss more than half their lessons.
For two schools, pupils will special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) had an attendance rate of less than eighty per cent. The Children and Young People scrutiny committee heard on 10 September that persistent absences were influenced by factors like anxiety, bullying, SEND and other.
But Cllr Ilkay Cinko-Oner suggested parents oblivious to truanting should also be considered as a factor.
“Half the time, parents don’t even know. They send their kids off thinking they’re going to school..
“Some schools don’t even bother to ring parents to tell them, and then are faced with fines.
“How do we monitor this?” she asked.
Across all schools, sixty per cent of recorded absences were unauthorised.
The committee has defined thirty four new ‘codes’ provided by the Department for Education (DfE) to help schools better understand why children are missing lessons. The council has also updated its policies on enforcing attendance, including penalty notices for parents. Under new rules, if a child is off school three or more times over three years, the Town Hall could take parents to court.
Cllr Jon Abbey acknowledged the unpopularity of fines but argued that the council’s approach is ” pragmatic, fair and balanced”.
“In some cases it is draconian but there there are cases where evidence suggests they do need to be fined,” he said.
Cllr Michelline Safi Ngongo stressed that more work needed to be done to fix the problem, but said the “good news” is that new the codes from DfE will give the council a better idea of the main cause of persistent absences.
“Some young people feel that school is not for them, that it is not welcoming them.
“To change the system, we need everybody round the table, including parents. Their voice matters, and the voice of young people matters,” she said.
