Question to the Department for Education:

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

The government understands how important regular school attendance is for children’s education, wellbeing and life chances. The department has a national strategy for tackling absence which will impact all schools, including those in Bournemouth.

At the heart of this strategy are clearer and more consistent expectations, which are set out in guidance and seek to promote both a ‘support first’ ethos and one in which attendance is everybody’s business. Through the guidance, schools are now expected to publish an attendance policy, appoint an attendance champion, and use data to identify and then support pupils at risk of becoming persistently absent. This guidance will ensure there is greater consistency for managing attendance across all schools and different local authority areas.

The department has established a daily data pilot that provides near real-time attendance data to schools, trusts and local authorities to help them target their efforts most effectively. The department has employed ten expert attendance advisers who are working with every local authority in the country and several multi-academy trusts to put in place effective plans to deliver the new attendance expectations.

The department has also formed an Attendance Action Alliance, comprised of national leaders from critical sectors like health, social care and policing who are taking action to promote stronger attendance through their workforces. Through this alliance, the department has launched a series of attendance hubs to enable schools with excellent attendance levels to share resources and advice with other schools in similar circumstances. These have recently expanded to 32 in number, which will support improvements across 2,000 schools who are responsible for the attendance of over 1 million pupils.

Alongside this work, the department is also hoping to improve the existing evidence base on effective interventions to improve attendance. The department recently announced a plan to launch a new £15 million pilot next academic year supporting at least 10,800 pupils across ten new priority education investment areas. This programme will be evaluated and the effective practice shared with schools and local authorities.

The attendance strategy is also underpinned by significant wider investment. This includes £5 billion worth of direct investment in education recovery, including £400 milion on teacher training opportunities and up to £1.5 billion on tutoring. Furthermore, the government is spending £2.9 billion annually on the pupil premium, on top of £1.3 billion on recovery premium. Schools must spend the pupil premium on evidence informed approaches, including attendance strategies and attendance. Recent analysis by the Education Endowment Foundation of school strategy statements found that 75% of schools in England identified poor attendance as a priority.

The government has also invested an extra £200 million on the Supporting Families programme increasing the budget to £695 million by 2024/25, to help an additional 300,000 families facing multiple problems. Sustained good attendance is a key outcome of the programme.