Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help reduce school absenteeism in Lancashire.

The department has a comprehensive national attendance strategy to ensure that every child attends school every day in all regions of the country.

This includes the recently expanded attendance hubs programme. There are now a total of almost 2,000 schools, including nine schools in Lancashire, who have been assigned a hub to tackle persistent absence, reaching around 1 million pupils. Attendance hubs are led by senior leaders in schools with effective attendance practice as a way for them to share practical approaches and resources for improving attendance.

The department published guidance on working together to improve school attendance to ensure that all local authorities and schools, including those in Lancashire, work together to reduce school absenteeism. The guidance is available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1099677/Working_together_to_improve_school_attendance.pdf.

Local authorities, including Lancashire, are expected to rigorously track local attendance data to devise a strategic approach to attendance. In addition, all schools in all regions are required to have an attendance policy and to appoint an attendance champion who is responsible for enforcing this. To help identify children at risk of persistent absence and to enable early intervention, the department established a timelier flow of pupil level attendance data through the daily attendance data collection.