Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to review the effectiveness of their guidance for tackling low school attendance and lost learning.

In the last academic year, around 1.5 million children are persistently absent, missing a day a fortnight, and 171,000 are severely absent, missing 50% of time in school or more (compared to 150,000 the previous year). These levels are unacceptably high, and the government is strongly committed to reversing the trend, but it will take time to unwind the legacy.

The department’s ‘Working Together to Improve School Attendance’ guidance became statutory in August 2024 and is based on our engagement with the strongest schools, trusts and local authorities across the country. We review all guidance on an ongoing basis and make changes as necessary.

Schools also have access to an attendance toolkit, developed in collaboration with the sector. The toolkit provides practical resources to support schools to identify the drivers of absence and adopt effective practice to improve attendance.

The department regularly publishes attendance data which shows how pupil attendance is changing over time. The data can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/pupil-attendance-in-schools. Thanks to the efforts of the sector, overall absence is moving in the right direction, with children attending over 3.1 million more days this year compared to last, and over 100,000 fewer children persistently absent. However, this still leaves around one in five pupils currently missing 10% or more of school.

That is why we are working with the sector to bring breakfast clubs to all primary schools so that every child is in on time and ready to learn, rolling out Attendance and Behaviour hubs providing support to schools to help them improve, and tackling mental ill-health among young people by providing access to specialist mental health professionals in every school.