School Attendance

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) for securing the debate. I was unable to attend the Labour Opposition day debate on a similar theme, so I appreciate being able to raise my points here. School absences are a huge problem, and we all agree with that. In County Durham, there were well over 1,000 absences in the 2022-23 autumn and spring terms. That number has sharply risen since the 2016-17 autumn and spring terms, when there were under 250 absences in the county. The Labour party estimates that the number of absences will rise to well over 1,800 by the 2026-27 autumn and spring terms, which would be an increase of 377%—unless, of course, there is a change of policy or, better yet, a change of Government.

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that we need a coherent strategy for tackling persistent absence, which includes a new register for home schooling, to keep track of these absent pupils?

[Mary Kelly Foy]

I absolutely agree. All children, whether they are in mainstream schooling or not, deserve to have the same importance placed on their education and their life chances. In Durham, we are blessed with incredible educators, and I must mention Mr Byers of Framwellgate School Durham, who publicly shared his recent letter to families highlighting the importance of good attendance. Mr Byers also encouraged families to reach out for support if they were struggling with their children. We must remember that support is key to ensuring that children achieve all that they are capable of, and I will miss Mr Byers’s supportive attitude when he sadly leaves Fram School in the near future.

It would be remiss of me not to mention St Leonard’s Catholic School in my constituency, and I am sure that Members will appreciate that my constituents, especially those affected at St Leonard’s, will want me to use all available opportunities to raise what their children are going through—after all, that is what they sent me here to do when they elected me in 2019. St Leonard’s was ordered to close just days before the autumn term began last year because of the presence of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete. According to the Government’s own figures, pupils at St Leonard’s only moved back to full-face education learning at the end of November. Before that, they were in a mix of face-to-face and remote arrangements, and for almost two weeks in fully remote learning.

I want to focus on that because, for the weeks that pupils were not in school, they were unable to socialise or receive a face-to-education, and they were placed in a topsy-turvy arrangement of being taught remotely and then off site. Their education was severely disrupted and it still is—they are being taught in inadequate settings. I would wager that the disastrous impact of RAAC is not too dissimilar to the effect of chronic absences. Absences can severely affect a pupil’s future opportunities—just look at the situation at St Leonard’s—and the Department for Education has not offered any dispensations. In fact, Durham University said the following in a report released last week:

“No policy has yet been devised to protect the results of the exam cohorts most affected. It is not clear why”.

My first question is this: why has a policy not been written up? In a letter that I sent to the Department for Education in October, I suggested an amendment to the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 to give the Secretary of State the powers to give dispensations where appropriate. Why not start with that? I cannot be more emphatic about this point: parents, teachers and pupils are extremely worried that pupils will not be achieve their dream of getting into the university of their choice because the Government have not offered to help them. When will the Government offer to help them?

With the crisis in St Leonard’s school, we can see how other injustices, such as the situation with Royal Mail, have been able to run away with themselves in this place. Government Ministers, such as the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), could have solved that problem; they could have brought justice for those affected. Instead, there was inaction and indifference. What are the consequences? The people out there—the people who we are supposed to serve—are left all the worse off. I will not allow that to happen to my constituents.