It appears hard for some to understand why a 95 per cent attendance target matters
It’s back to school for millions of children this week. Six weeks have barely seemed long enough to squeeze in a summer holiday – and those families that did will be painfully familiar with. Some budget-conscious parents will decide that their offspring can miss the crucial first week of term in favour of a cheaper trip away.
The figures are alarming. For the academic year 2022-23, some 150,000 state school pupils were regarded as “severely absent”, meaning they missed 50 per cent of lesson time and an astonishing 20 per cent missed a day every fortnight. It’s not just down to holidays. The influence of Covid-related lockdowns and post-pandemic work from home culture has seen parents become more relaxed about children skipping school –– not least, because they are at home to “look after” them.
It appears hard for some parents to understand why a 95 per cent attendance target matters. In classes of 30 or 20-ish , it is impossible to create tailored catch-up lessons for individual pupils. Yes, we can post PowerPoints of missed lessons in Microsoft Teams or Google Classroom, but we cannot replicate the dialogue, questioning and thinking; the actual pedagogy that takes place.Lesson sequences move quickly.
This week, in addition to teaching English and being a sixth-form tutor, I begin two new roles at my school: Head of Transitions and Head of Literacy. Pupil transitions from one school to another have become markedly more difficult since the pandemic. The levels of pupil anxiety have soared – although as, this is more down to mobile phone and social media usage married to helicopter parenting, than it is anxiety about school itself.
School is also about learning to be resilient. While being sympathetic to transition and attendance anxiety, teachers are painfully aware of the effect of absenteeism on literacy and numeracy, pupils’ exam results and future prospects. Parents saving a few hundred pounds today may actually cost their children so much more when they become adults.
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