Attendance hubs launched to boost school attendance

As reported by DfE, as the government unveils vigorous measures to enhance school attendance, over a million children stand to benefit from targeted support and interventions

There will be 18 new attendance hubs across 6 regions, bringing the total to 32 and will see nearly 2,000 schools helped to tackle persistent absence.

Hubs are run by schools with excellent attendance that share practical ideas with other primary, secondary, alternative provision and special schools in England that need help to boost their attendance.

From direct pupil engagement initiatives like breakfast clubs and extracurricular activities to improving their processes and analysis of attendance data, lead hub schools provide a range of support to schools that they can tailor to their pupils and families.

Being in school has never been more valuable with standards continuing to rise. 89% of schools are now rated good or outstanding, up from 68% in 2010. We are constantly seeing the success of our reforms rising up the rankings in maths, reading and science. Just this month, England was ranked 11th in the world for maths, up from 27th in 2009, and in May, England was named ‘best in the west’ for primary reading.

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said:

The benefits of our success in raising education standards can only be when all children are in school.

Tackling attendance is my number one priority. We want all our children to have the best start in life because we know that attending school is vital to a child’s wellbeing, development, and attainment as well as impact future career success.

I am hugely grateful to all our brilliant teachers, heads, and everyone whose worked with us to make the progress we’ve already made with 380,000 fewer children persistently absent.

A national communications campaign on the importance of attendance is also launching today targeting parents and carers. Under the strapline ‘Moments Matter, Attendance Counts’ it outlines the importance of attendance for attainment, wellbeing, and development as well as signposting to advice for further support.

Key advice includes a recent letter from the Chief Medical Officer that outlines best practice when it comes to attendance and illness. The intention is to ensure that parents have the guidance they need when it comes to making decisions when deciding to send their child to school or when to keep them home.

The government has also committed to further legislation in the coming months that will mean all schools will be required to share their daily school registers. This, together with reforming pupil registration practice, will modernise how schools record and share data on attendance and support them to understand what is driving absence in their school and provide early support and intervention where pupils are displaying worrying trends of absence.