School absences on the Isle of Wight have remained at largely the same level despite warning notices for parents being introduced.
Overall the figure has dropped by 0.1% to 4.9% overall (secondary schools falling 0.1% to 6.1%, primary schools remaining at 4%).
Cabinet member for children’s services, education and skills, Cllr Paul Brading said the strategies the council had put in place were fully embedded and working but there was an issue with persistent absence at secondary schools that they were aware of.
A report, which went before the Isle of Wight Council’s children’s education scrutiny committee, said indicative figures from census data demonstrated improvement with overall and persistent absences when compared to the previous academic year.
Persistent absences in secondary schools which were higher than the national average.
Persistent absences occur when a pupil misses 10% of their lessons and it has been suggested that for every 5% of missed lessons, pupils can perform an average of one grade lower in KS4 exams.
Cllr Brading said he was a firm believer that better attendance at school could lead to better exam results and hopes when the figures were officially published, and a report came back to the scrutiny committee, the gap will ‘narrow further’.
Special schools on the Island are consistently below the national average in absence areas with overall absences at 1.6% compared to 10.2% nationally.
The biggest cause of absence was illness with unauthorised absences second.
Some of the strategies used by the council to control school absences include monitoring visits, service level agreements with schools and families and parents being held to account.
Early interventions are also increasing to help prevent absences — 1,015 school attendance meetings — face-to-face meetings with parents and pupils where poor attendance patterns are emerging — took place in 2018/19, a 15% increase on the previous years.
A new process introduced school attendance warning notices — if a pupil had ten unauthorised absences in a rolling 12-week period. In 18/19, 668 warning notices were issued on 418 children.
It’s a joke!!! Parents should be able to take the kids out of school when ever they like!!!! Where’s all this fine money going???? Lining some pricks pocket at the council offices!
sadly golly some parents lack the capacity for sensible planning for their children and demonstrate the same level of stupidity and pigheadedness they had when they were at school.
This is why there are so many measures in place to make kids turn up – because the parents cannot be trusted to make sure their kids get an education
ruins it for those that are sensible.
Absolute joke !! If schools were to implement lessons that actually benefit children then perhaps it would be a different story, or actually listen to the reasons behind a child’s absence.
In my opinion my childs mental health is far more important than having to play rugby/netball etc etc.
Schools are very quick to blame parents when perhaps they need to look a little closer to home !!