Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they will take to address the gaps in learning for disabled children who need to be absent from school more often than their peers.

Disabled children often face greater barriers to attending school than their peers, but the government is clear that the attendance ambition for these pupils should be the same as for any other pupil.

The department’s new ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance (attached) sets expectations on schools to be mindful of the barriers that disabled children face and put in place additional support where necessary to access full-time education, including making reasonable adjustments (for example, to uniforms or school routines). The department’s attendance hubs, mentors and advisor programmes will help schools to meet these expectations.

Local authorities are responsible for arranging suitable education for children of compulsory school age who, because of health reasons including long-term illness, would otherwise not receive suitable education. The department’s statutory guidance, ‘Ensuring a good education for children who cannot attend school because of health needs’ (attached), sets out clear expectations of local authorities to meet this duty including that the education provided is of good quality.

The attached Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan and the Children’s Social Care Implementation Strategy, detail commitments to providing stronger support for disabled children. This includes a Law Commission review of children’s social care legislation for disabled children and a £30 million investment in innovative approaches to short breaks for disabled children. Improved attendance will be a key outcome in the new SEND and AP inclusion dashboards and in the new performance framework for AP. Information on the implementation strategy is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/childrens-social-care-stable-homes-built-on-love.