Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to lower rates of student absence in secondary schools in (a) Essex and (b) South Basildon and East Thurrock constituency.

This government is determined to tackle the generational challenge of school absence which is a fundamental barrier to learning and life chances. Missing school regularly is harmful to a child’s attainment, safety and physical and mental health, which limits their opportunity to succeed. There is evidence that more students are attending school this year compared to last, thanks to the sector’s efforts, although around 1.6 million children remain persistently absent and miss 10% or more of lessons.

Central to the department’s approach are stronger expectations of local authorities and schools, as set out in the ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance, which was made statutory on 19 August 2024 and can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-improve-school-attendance. The guidance promotes a 'support first' approach, and sets out clear expectations on how schools, trusts, local authorities and wider services, including those in Essex and South Basildon and East Thurrock constituency, should work together and with families to address attendance barriers and provide the right support, including where a pupil is not attending due to special educational needs.

Every state school in England should now be sharing their daily attendance register data with the department, local authorities and trusts. These bodies can access this data through a secure, interactive dashboard which is maintained by the department, allowing them to target attendance interventions more effectively.

The department recognises the importance of creating opportunities within the sector to share existing best practice on how to improve attendance. This is why the department set up a network of 31 attendance hubs, who have offered support to 2000 primary, secondary and alternative provision schools, including in Essex, and shared their strategies and resources for improving attendance. Bringing together best practice from the hubs, we have also published an attendance toolkit which aims to support schools to identify the drivers of absence in their setting and address these. The toolkit can be accessed here: https://attendancetoolkit.blob.core.windows.net/toolkit-doc/Attendance%20toolkit%20for%20schools.pdf.

In addition to this work, the department also aims to improve the existing evidence on which interventions work to improve attendance. Over £17 million is being invested across two mentoring projects that will support at least 12,000 pupils in 15 areas. These programmes will be evaluated and the effective practice shared with schools and local authorities nationally.

From early 2025, new Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence (RISE) teams will support all state schools by facilitating networking, sharing best practice across areas, including attendance, and empowering schools to access support and learn from one another. For schools requiring more intensive support, RISE teams and supporting organisations will work collaboratively with their responsible body to agree bespoke packages of targeted support and challenge, based on a school’s particular circumstances.

School attendance is also supported by broader investments, such as funded breakfast clubs across all primary schools to ensure children start their day ready to learn. The department is working across government on plans to provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school, new Young Futures hubs, including access to mental health support workers, and an additional 8,500 new mental health staff to treat children and adults. Additionally, the department will initiate new annual Ofsted reviews focusing on safeguarding, attendance, and off-rolling.

Schools can also allocate pupil premium funding, which has now increased to over £2.9 billion for the 2024/25 financial year, to support pupils with identified needs to attend school regularly.