A joint new report published today by Child of the North and Anne Longfield’s Centre for Young Lives think tank, puts forward new recommendations to tackle the school absence crisis.
The report highlights how vulnerable children and children from disadvantaged areas of the UK (such as the North of England) are at higher risk of not being in school, and calls on the new Government to focus its school absence strategy on earlier identification and intervention with children most at risk of persistent absence.
The report, “An evidence-based plan for improving school attendance”, is the tenth in a series of Child of the North/Centre for Young Lives reports to be published during 2024 to support the Government’s ambitious Opportunity Mission vision for children. The reports show how putting the interests and life chances of children at the heart of policy making and delivery is crucial to Britain’s future success.
The new report comes a few days after the most recent Department for Education (DfE) data showed around 150,000 children in England are missing a half or more of their time at school. This severe absence crisis is continuing to grow, even as the number of children persistently absent falls.
School absence is associated with a range of negative secondary impacts on children’s physical health, mental wellbeing, workforce involvement, and interaction with the criminal justice system. In 2018/19 only 36% of persistently absent children achieved expected grades in English and Maths, compared to 78% of children rarely absent from school. Persistently absent children have a nearly four times increased risk of becoming Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET).
School absence can also be a safeguarding issue, and children who are missing school can be at greater risk of criminal or sexual exploitation and/or serious violence.
However, the report warns that the current national approach to tackling school absence is far too punitive and uniform. Many headteachers say that strategies used prior to the pandemic to tackle school absence are no longer as effective as they were before 2020.
Between 2015-2016 and 2023-24, the overall school absence rate rose in England by 57%. The report highlights how school absence in primary school is linked to greater school absence in a child’s later years. It also reveals how there are higher levels of school absence in disadvantaged areas, including how:
- Rates of unauthorised absence were 34% higher in the North of England than the South of England.
- The highest rates of unauthorised persistent absence are in the North of England, where on average 1 in 10 children were considered persistently absent for unauthorised reasons.
- The overall persistent absence rate is highest in the South West (22.2%) and Yorkshire and The Humber (22.1%), while Outer London recorded the lowest overall persistent absence rate of 18.7%.
- Children in the North of England experienced longer COVID-19 lockdowns and continue to experience higher levels of poverty and reduced educational funding and the North has more local authorities with higher rates of both school absence and higher deprivation.
The report argues that the reasons for children being absent from school are complex and there are often a multitude of risk factors leading to absence, including larger issues of inequality and deprivation, marginalisation, Special Educational Needs, mental health challenges, tooth decay, and family and parental factors. Even within local areas there can be variable school attendance rates.
For example, through analysis of the Connected Bradford population linked research database, the report reveals large discrepancies in school attendance across the Bradford District. One Bradford locality showed an unauthorised absence rate over 22 times greater than the locality with the lowest rate. In some areas, 80% of the total unauthorised absences were attributable to about 12% of pupils.
The report also shows how vulnerable children are at increased risk of school absence:
- For the 2023-24 academic year, persistent non-attendance rates were 20.7%, increasing to 37% for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds and 35.7% for those receiving free school meals.
- The persistent absence rate for pupils with an Education Health Care Plan was 37.6% – substantially higher than for those without special needs (18.6%).
- Attendance was only 77% for girls in Key Stage 4 who have special educational needs and were eligible for pupil premium (additional school level funding to support disadvantaged pupils) in 2024.
- Autistic pupils experience high rates of persistent absence, with a rate of 31% in 2020-21.
- 39% of pupils identified as young carers were persistently absent from school
- Children with short-term social worker involvement experienced higher rates of absence/persistent absence and exclusion.
The report makes a series of policy recommendations to tackle the school absence crisis, including:
Enhancing early intervention for children at risk of absence. Central and local government should support schools to implement early identification of students at risk of persistent absence, focusing on those from disadvantaged backgrounds, children with special educational needs (SEND), and those living in high-deprivation areas. Interventions should include targeted support plans, regular attendance monitoring, and collaboration between schools, social services, and health providers to address underlying issues such as mental health and family stress.
Schools should establish early screening methods to identify at-risk pupils before attendance issues escalate. In some cases, mentoring programmes, where trained mentors provide both academic and emotional support, should be offered. Mentors can build positive relationships and offer guidance, helping pupils stay engaged with their education. Schools must be supported to engage with parents in creating realistic, individual support plans that address both academic and personal challenges.
Fostering a sense of belonging and inclusivity in schools. Government – via frameworks such as Ofsted – should reward schools that promote inclusive environments that emphasise relational approaches, helping pupils feel valued and safe. Schools should focus on creating a supportive culture through peer support systems, extracurricular activities, and a focus on mental health. Ensuring that children feel connected to their school community can improve attendance rates and reduce disengagement. This should include supporting schools to provide extracurricular activities, enrichment programmes, peer support systems, and volunteer opportunities to help children feel engaged and develop a sense of identity within the school.
Developing cross-service collaboration for holistic support. National and local government should encourage closer collaboration between education, healthcare, and social services to provide integrated support for students facing complex challenges. Schools should serve as hubs for receiving multi-agency assistance, ensuring that health and social issues are addressed within the school setting, reducing barriers to attendance, and improving overall wellbeing. There needs to be coordinated support of multiple agencies, and building of multi-agency partnerships, involving local authorities, community organisations, and healthcare services. These partnerships can help identify the root causes of absenteeism—whether due to mental health, family circumstances, or other factors—and the networks can then work collaboratively to provide targeted, individualised support. Local Authorities should play a central role in facilitating this approach.
Read the full report – “An evidence-based plan for improving school attendance.”
Find out more about the A country that works for all children and young people series
Anne Longfield, Executive Chair of the Centre for Young Lives, said:
“Tackling the rise in children missing learning is one of the Government’s most urgent challenges. We should be extremely concerned that 150,000 children are absent from school for half or more of the academic year. This is bad for their life chances and bad for our economy and society.
“The one-size-fits-all and often punitive approach that previous Governments have taken to tackle absence needs to be consigned to the past. Simply, threatening parents with fines is not working for many families and not reducing severe absence rates.
“The crucial message this report puts forward is the need to intervene early and to build a sense of belonging and inclusion in schools. Investing early in supporting children at risk of disengagement from education is the best way of preventing problems further down the line and no child should ever think that school isn’t for them.”
Professor Mark Mon Williams, Child of The North report series editor, said:
“The crisis in school attendance goes beyond numbers – it represents the life chances of thousands of children. When children are not in school, they are not just missing lessons; they are at risk of potential danger, and they are losing opportunities for healthy development.
“We urgently need to create an education system that identifies and supports children at risk of disengagement before they fall behind, so every child has the chance to succeed, no matter their background.
“The UK’s future depends on everyone supporting schools to be inclusive places where all children and young people feel they belong.”
Dr Camilla Kingdon, Former President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said:
“I find the data presented in this report terrifying. I am struck not just by the simple enormity of how many children are not in school, but the clear evidence of how unfair this is. Why should a child who lives in the North of England be at significantly higher risk of disengaging with the education system? How can it be that a child on free school meals is so much more likely to persistently miss school? Why are young carers finding it so difficult to engage with full time education?
“I find the data presented in this report terrifying. I am struck not just by the simple enormity of how many children are not in school, but the clear evidence of how unfair this is. Why should a child who lives in the North of England be at significantly higher risk of disengaging with the education system? How can it be that a child on free school meals is so much more likely to persistently miss school? Why are young carers finding it so difficult to engage with full time education? “
Professor Caroline Bond, University of Manchester, one of the executive report editors, said:
“School attendance is a critical issue, not just for academic achievement but for the overall wellbeing and success of young people. It is essential that we work together—schools, families, communities, services and policymakers—to ensure that every child is able to engage with high quality education.”