Government cracking down on school non-attenders. What happens in practice.

I tried to do a little more research into numbers and came across this
A child missing from education (CME) has not been registered with any school, nor are they being educated from home.

It is estimated that more children are missing from education than ever before. In a 2020 report, the Local Government Association estimated the total number as 250,000 children.

More recent investigations by the Children’s Commissioner For England in 2022 found that there are no reliable figures for children who have slipped through the net and never go to school.
As local authorities don’t know what happened to these children, they’re unable to meet their duty to keep them safe

That's a shocking number. These are lost children, not in school, not home educated. These are the children who should be getting visits
www.systemc.com/knowledge-hub/blogs/absences-from-schools-in-the-uk-the-key-statistics-for-2023/

My mother - a teenager in the 1940s - told me that the headmaster of their school used to go round pupils' houses on weekday evenings to check that the children were at home doing their homework. If they were seen out at a cinema or similar on a school night, this would be referred to in morning assembly the following day and the pupils concerned shamed! This would have been during the war so maybe this had something to do with it. But ....

Sadly there are parents who don't send their children to school and their % attendance is very low. We have an attendance line which we expect parents to leave a message explaining their child’s reason for absence. If no message is left I ring to ask why they are not in school, but this is a friendly check in call along the lines of can we help etc etc . The only families that are home visited are children that have been absent 2 days with no message or no response to my call, families we know may have a safeguarding worry or children with attendance below 80%. If a child has a long term illness I meet with parents in school with the involvement of the school nurse and an attendance plan is agreed, this may be attending on a part time basis for example. All parents with children who have attendance under 80% receive a series of attendance letters and meetings in school. Attendance is dreadful and there are children missing out.

I suspect one of the problems could be that experience education welfare officers were made redundant when resources were transferred from education authorities to school. Rising absence statistics have caused panic, so a new cohort of welfare officers has been recruited, who don't have the years of experience the old ones did and are possibly working from a script.

I think some posters would be surprised that "nice" families condone unnecessary absence too.

As I wrote before, what should have happened is that the officers should have ensured that the child is getting all available medical support and also offered some kind of support to ensure that the child isn't losing out on education. If the child has online access, resources could be suggested and/or in extreme cases, home tutors are available.

Sending them away with a flea in their ear would be a guaranteed way to set warning bells ringing.

Callistemon21

^If those two turned up at my door I would refuse to engage, and they would have been told to clear off^

rafichagran

And that would have rung warning bells very loudly that the parent was trying to hide something.

And why should people doing their job be treated in that way.

If those two turned up at my door I would refuse to engage, and they would have been told to clear off

rafichagran

And that would have rung warning bells very loudly that the parent was trying to hide something.

fancythat

Does the school itself, employ the School Attendance officials?
If I was the parents, I would be straight around to the school, to work out where things have gone amiss. As well as contacting School Governors.

No.
They are employed by County Hall and probably do not work in any particular school.

Perhaps the whole system needs to change.

School Attendance officials should use their intelligence, both in their heads and in their files to target those families that are known to be struggling or where they have good reason to believe there are problems, not the families they see and talk to frequently and have a fully dossier of medical reports.

They may not have all that information even if the school does. Would you want his medical records shared by the school without permission? They will have a record of attendance which they need to follow up on.

Instead of looking at this as censure, perhaps be grateful that they wanted to see the child to check on his welfare.
You know he comes from a loving, caring family but they did not.

M0nica

Callistemon21 Read the post I wrote that is just above yours. As I have said several times, parent and school had been working together for at least 2 terms on DGS's problems and they had been given all the relevant medical information including the consultants letter's.

Yes, I understood that M0nica

However, I wondered if the relevant information had not gone through to the School Attendance Officers who do not, presumably, work at the school nowadays but probably at County Hall.
The only information they may have is the attendance records of pupils in the County which they have to investigate.

A breakdown in communication.

I hate the full attendance award as well, it's discriminating. I also worked with a horror who had full attendance for 20 years at work no sickness on her record. She was selfish and come in with streaming colds and coughs and passed it round the office. I found this selfish.

One unhealthy spin off of it all is the utter nonsense of prizes for good attendance - bit of a bugger for those children with medical conditions who will not win the prize ever.

This is a bone of contention here too.
A child I know is disabled and has lots of medical appointments, needless to say in school time.
The child is being discriminated against because of their disability, and is understandably getting upset by knowing they'll never achieve an attendance prize because of this. How is that an acceptable system?
Parents have complained strongly to school.

A parent does everything they can, and while they have a sick child two demanding people turn up at the door, I would be put out.
These people could have contacted the School, they would have known then the parent was ringing in everyday, and had a note from a consultant, yet still they asked for a private letter sent to the pupil from one of his medical team.
I had a situation where my son done something quite serious to his knee, I had to take three weeks of work as he was off School and needed help. I contacted the School and that was enough.
If those two turned up at my door I would refuse to engage, and they would have been told to clear off. They could have taken it further but what a what a waste of time and money. All they would have found was a responsible parent with a son on crutches who found it hard even to use the loo.
I am not buying into they do not have the time to contact the School for further information, if these people are overworked or lazy that is the fault of the system, not responsible parents.

The prizes for good attendance has been going on for 30 years.
At least it has, around here.

Agree with the rest of your post.

The schools are under pressure from OfSted to whom they must justify their attendance record. The schools know why children are away in the main, and also the futility of trying to deal with it. They cannot stop bugs going round school - and on the one hand they do not want germy children in school spreading the love, but have to get them back in asap to keep OfSted happy. It's all crazy.

One unhealthy spin off of it all is the utter nonsense of prizes for good attendance - bit of a bugger for those children with medical conditions who will not win the prize ever. And I object to prizes that require no effort from the child.

Unfortunately, MOnica your family are an easy target as is my daughter. our families are the ones who answer the phone and go to meetings. Our families give them another ticked box.

Home schooling which is a different subject to Monica’s post is in some cases a cover up for ‘I can’t be bothered to fight them going to school they ll be ok’
The family that used to live next to me were all ‘home schooled’ while the overweight ‘ill’ mum was out on her mobility scooter The kids were playing computer games I could hear them, plus loud music and playing football in the alley way
One boy works and one girl has taken herself to college(/I admire her must have been hard to concentrate) The other 6 are on benefits ( mental illness) and the girls are procreating from age 16 also on single mum benefits
This is NOT to knock many kids that are successfully home schooled although personally I think the need to know how to socially fit in is more difficult to achieve when alone at home and I believe they miss out BUT I do think it needs much much more supervision
I think Monica’s case was badly organised and I d have been put out too

Callistemon21 Read the post I wrote that is just above yours. As I have said several times, parent and school had been working together for at least 2 terms on DGS's problems and they had been given all the relevant medical information including the consultants letter's.

Does the school itself, employ the School Attendance officials?
If I was the parents, I would be straight around to the school, to work out where things have gone amiss. As well as contacting School Governors.

Perhaps they didn't have full disclosure of all the medical information, just the reports of absences which they were duty bound to follow up?

But as I keep saying, in this case the school was completely up to date with the child's medical problems, absences etc. They already had all the information they required and knew he was only absent when obviously ill. He had been the subject of amicable face to face as well as electronic ongoing discussion between school and family for at least 2 terms. There was a planned parents evening a week later which the parents were known to always attend.

School Attendance officials should use their intelligence, both in their heads and in their files to target those families that are known to be struggling or where they have good reason to believe there are problems, not the families they see and talk to frequently and have a fully dossier of medical reports.
They are short of money and resources, why on earth target a family where their visit could add nothing to the files that was not already known and not get a child back in school.

I think it is probably better that several families are offended than another child is missed and ends up suffering abuse, neglect, or worse, dead.

I think Callistemon has it right. The attendance officers were prob based with the education authority not members of the school staff and they were working down a list with no knowledge of individual families. In these circs they would def have to ask routine questions.
Certainly sounds as though their manner was abrupt but surely no great harm done.

Damask Rose - my team also worked well with our police. They responded so well to our need for support
Working Together the orange book from Blair’s early period emphasised the need for multi agency work. That wheel needs reinventing

I am so sorry to hear of this experience Silverlining, terrifying for you. Hindsight is a wonderful thing because yes, you should have said “no”, it’s outrageous that you felt you couldn’t. DH was a front line social worker for many years and faced many difficult and dangerous situations. Fortunately he had an excellent working relationship with the local police and was able to call on them if needed. I think the school welfare officers should work in pairs but I think the main problem in this case was a total breakdown in communication between them and the school. It could, and should, have been handled better.