B

Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 7 May 2025

Debate

Pupil Absenteeism

Contribution

As the noble Baroness knows, there is a differential impact on absenteeism, depending on whether a child has special educational needs or free school meals. So it is really important that, in using the improved data now available to us at a very granular level, we ensure that schools know what is effective in order to reduce absenteeism and, in particular—this was the reason for the roadshows that the noble Baroness identified—can compare themselves with others. Schools with similar intakes perform very differently in tackling absence, which is why we need to make sure that the data is used in a really granular way. To be fair to the noble Baroness, she started that in her time in the department.

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