Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what guidance her Department has issued to schools in Buckingham and Bletchley constituency on minimum attendance improvement targets.

Tackling absence is central to the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity. Children attended over 5.3 million additional days in the 2024/25 school year compared to the 2023/23 school year, with over 140,000 fewer pupils persistently absent.

Our statutory ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance sets clear expectations for schools to take a support-first approach, using data to identify patterns and intervene early.

To support this, our attendance baseline improvement expectations (ABIEs) set out the minimum improvement expected over an academic year, based on each school’s context and previous year’s attendance. Schools’ progress against their ABIEs informs the type of support offered.

ABIEs are a starting point, not a limit. Schools are encouraged to work, towards pre-pandemic attendance levels or better. Indicative ABIEs are available now, with full introduction in 2026/27.

Alongside ABIEs, schools receive ‘similar schools’ reports which name higher-performing schools with comparable characteristics and provide advice on how to contact them to share strategies. Schools can also access an updated attendance improvement toolkit for practical advice on attendance improvement. For schools facing the greatest challenges, we are rolling out up to 90 Attendance and Behaviour Hubs, to deliver structured peer support and bespoke improvement plans.