More and more poor children are missing school since Covid. Here’s how to get them back in class

School absence is a source of frustration for educators, just as it is for policymakers.

All of us who have worked in teaching will know that looking out from the front of a classroom to see the same desks repeatedly empty is a dispiriting experience. It’s not just that our modes and methods of teaching a wider cohort of pupils are disrupted but that we see uncomfortable and unfair trends playing out before our eyes.

The latest report from the Education Policy Institute (EPI) – Breaking down the gap: The role of school absence and pupil characteristics – demonstrates the continued correlation between economic disadvantage, poor school attendance and poor attainment levels. Students on free school meals in England are missing more school time than their peers, and are drifting behind academically as a result: an existing trend which has spiked since the pandemic.

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The EPI estimated that free school meals pupils had the same attendance record as their classmates, the gap in attainment levels by the age of 11 would be almost 10% less, and the gap at age 16 would be a whopping 20% lower.

As Community’s members can attest, schools work incredibly hard to encourage and reward attendance. But so much of what affects a child’s attendance is outside of a school’s control.

We cannot – and should never – seek to penalise the many children who have disabilities and medical or mental health conditions who cannot improve their attendance. Neither should we seek to penalise the growing number of children who are the primary carer for their siblings or parents in low-income homes.

There are a range of different estimates about exactly how many young carers there are. The 2021 Office for National Statistics census reported that there are around 120,000 young carers aged five to 18 years of age in England, while the school census in 2023 suggested that there were 39,000 ‘known’ young carers in the country. But we know that there may be many more that have slipped through the gaps.

For many of these brave children, each new day is effectively another shift. It could require walking younger siblings to school, washing piles of dishes and clothes, preparing breakfast and dinner, supporting disabled parents, or accompanying family members to regular medical appointments.

It’s little surprise that over a quarter of young carers regularly miss school, and they should never be made to feel like they have failed when they do so. It’s the role of educators, local authorities and the state to ensure that the needs of these young people are fully met so that they are free to attend school.

It’s also important to ensure that early intervention is available to support those with additional needs – the absence of that support is a huge barrier to regular school attendance and attainment. We need to speed up access to child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS): 400,000 children are still on waiting lists, with an average wait of more than three years for treatment. The government is committed to addressing this, and we at Community want to work with them to secure interim support for those stuck on waiting lists to prevent their conditions from deteriorating.

In our schools, we need to properly recognise and reward support staff as the skilled professionals they are. Community’s members in teaching assistant and support staff roles play a vital pastoral function in encouraging reluctant pupils to attend school; mending pupils’ interpersonal relationships; resolving disputes with parents; leading interventions; and much more besides. Specialist SEND assistants are also likely to have a specific understanding of the needs of the children they work with than the class teacher.

As well as properly valuing the role of underappreciated educators, we also need to devise a vibrant and engaging curriculum that encourages attendances through excitement about learning. Far too much of our curriculum is about meeting targets and achieving in tests. That focus on assessment above all else can be damaging to children’s health and wellbeing and does not prepare them well for adult life.

We look forward to the outcomes of the curriculum and assessment review which we hope will begin to address some of these issues. The government’s child poverty strategy, which is due to be published this spring, will also be pivotal, specifically in regards to those elements which support children to attend school through the provision of meals and other funded support.

When it comes to addressing poor attendance, we agree that early intervention is key. But this must be accompanied by support that addresses the root causes which prevent attendance. If our focus is purely on cracking down on empty desks, we will wilfully be ignoring the deeper-rooted issues affecting our communities.

Martin Hodge is head of education policy for the Community trade union.

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