Recommendation 7

HM Government Acknowledged

39. We recognise that the lessons we have learned during the pandemic must help us strengthen and improve the overall system. That is why we are in the process of reviewing the school attendance system as a whole and have recently consulted on proposals aimed at transforming the consistency and quality of attendance support for families across England. We set out more detail about this approach in our recent Schools White Paper. 40. We published our response to the ‘Children Not In School’ consultation in February 2022. This reaffirmed our commitment to create local authority registers for children not in school and duty on local authorities to provide support to home educators. The system will help local authorities undertake their existing duties to ensure children receive a suitable education, as well as safeguard children who are in scope. We hope to legislate for this at the next suitable opportunity. 41. As the Committee has noted, we have also formed an attendance action alliance who are already taking action to reduce absence. The Children’s Commissioner, who is a member of the Alliance, made a pledge to undertake a review to understand more about where missing children are and why they may be falling through the gaps. She has consulted the Alliance on her interim findings and her review continues apace. 42. Additional work by members of the Alliance includes a pledge by the Chief Social Worker, Isabelle Trowler, focussing on boosting attendance for children in need and fostering better communication between social care and schools to support this. Dame Clare Gerada from the Royal College of General Practitioners is raising awareness about the importance of school attendance amongst GPs and recently wrote to GPs on this subject. 43. The alliance also includes work from Rob Tarn, CEO of the Northern Education Trust, a multi academy trust serving areas with high levels of disadvantage, who is working with other school and trust leaders to identify and disseminate best practice. Alongside Rob’s work, we are running a programme of attendance webinars for schools, trusts and local authorities aimed at sharing effective practice from those who have significantly reduced absence and persistent absence. Cumulatively, over 9000 school and local authority staff have registered to join these events so far and we have more planned for the rest of the term. 44. We also have a team of expert attendance advisers who are playing an important role working closely with a number of local authorities and multi-academy trusts with higher levels of persistent absence to review their current practice and develops plans to improve. 45. Of course, alongside this, the Government’s Supporting Families programme in local authorities is working closely with families where attendance is a significant concern. And we continue to make clear that schools can and should use their pupil and recovery premium funding to support efforts at re-engaging their most vulnerable pupils.