B

Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 9 December 2024

Debate

Maintained Schools: Term Dates

Contribution

The noble Lord is absolutely right: if children are not in school, they cannot learn. Although levels of absenteeism are marginally better this year than last, they are still considerably worse than before the pandemic, with around 1.6 million children—more than one in five—missing at least one day per fortnight. This is why we need a wide-ranging approach to tackling absenteeism. We need to build on the detailed data we now have available to us. We need to expect schools to focus, before a child becomes persistently absent, on the reasons why they are absent and what intervention may be necessary. We need schools to learn from those who are tacking this issue much more effectively. We are investing £15 million in expanding the specialist attendance mentoring programme for persistently absent pupils. We need to make sure that the new guidance issued in August is being followed appropriately, because this is a fundamental issue on which we need to make progress. Children need to be in school in order to learn, and in order to prevent the disruption to others in class that happens when children are absent.

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