One in three children refused to go to school in past year
In a new poll carried out by charity Parentkind, 96% of parents agree it is important for children to go to school every day if they can. However, almost a third of children have refused to go to school on more than one occasion in the last year; equivalent to almost 3.3 million school children. Of those who said their children have refused to go to school on more than one occasion in the last year, 1 in 10 missed two or more weeks of school, equivalent to 330,000 pupils.
The top reason parents cited (15%) for their children missing school was because they do not enjoy school. The next most common reason was a lack of provision for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), followed by problems with mental health as well as bullying at school. Parentkind CEO Jason Elsom says, ‘what really comes out of our survey is that children are switching off school and this is leading to them staying at home.’ The charity has led calls for the Curriculum and Assessment Review to put school enjoyment top of its list of priorities, after a previous poll of parents found that 50% of children were bored of school.
The poll shows that parents are divided on the use of fines for non-attendance. Whilst 48% agree that fines effectively prevent children from regularly missing school, 38% disagree. Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, says that ‘increasing absence figures over the last decade seem to indicate that fines are failing to shift the dial in any meaningful way.’ Instead, he calls for investment in social care, mental health, and special educational needs, allied with tangible action to address the causes of poverty, in order to ‘make a real difference to children’s attendance at school.’
★ Our Pupil Attendance experts can work with your school to find positive solutions to tackle persistent absence, ensuring every child has the support they need to access education. Get in touch for more details.
Report calls for government to promote playtime in schools
Following a year-long independent inquiry, the Raising the Nation Play Commission has published a report exploring why play is critical to the wellbeing of children in England. The report highlights the many benefits that play provides, including improved memory and problem-solving skills, social skills like self-regulation and negotiation, better mental and physical health, and boosting school readiness and learning. Yet, time spent playing outdoors has declined by 50% in a generation and fewer than three in ten children say that they play out on the street. With millions of children missing out on the opportunity to play, the report argues that a National Play Strategy is more urgent than ever.
There are a number of barriers that limit children’s opportunities to play. For example, the report finds that at least 400 playgrounds – and probably more – closed across England between 2012 and 2022. Between 2017 and 2021, spending on play facilities across England fell by 44%. Now, over 2 million children in England up to age 9 do not live within a ten-minute walk of a playground. Additionally, the report identifies the rise of traffic on the streets and the dominance of screen time as crucial factors in restricting play.
Another significant barrier is the de-prioritisation of play within the education system. Evidence shows that between 1995 and 2021, school breaktimes fell by 23 minutes a day for the youngest primary pupils – equivalent to almost two hours a week. For older primary children, breaktimes fell by an average of 18 minutes a day and 17 minutes for pupils in Key Stage 3. Notably, breaktimes had fallen most sharply in primary schools in the most deprived parts of England. Those with a higher proportion of children eligible for free school meals had shorter breaktimes. The report suggests that the National Curriculum, with its narrow focus on rote learning an assessment, not only prevents many schools from employing play-based learning techniques, but also reframes breaktime as ‘nothing more than a loss of valuable teaching time.’ Indeed, surveys show that teachers’ attitudes have changed over time. In 1995, 69% of secondary school teachers believed the main value of breaktime was to provide an opportunity for pupils to socialise with their peers. In 2017, this fell to 57%. Meanwhile, 71% now report that the main value of breaktime is for pupils to eat and drink. In other words, they are a chance to refuel before reentering the classroom.
To reverse the loss of playtime in schools, the Commission calls on the government to establish the first National Play Strategy for England since 2008, setting our a clear, long-term vision to ensure children can easily access and enjoy places to play in public, at school, and at home. It also calls for new statutory the Department for Education (DfE) guidance to ringfence time within the school day for breaktimes and for Ofsted to include play sufficiency as a measure of school performance. Paul Lindley OBE, Chair of the Raising the Nation Play Commission, says that ‘play is a crucial tool for reversing the growing number of children with obesity, mental ill health, and developmental problems. It’s time to get our children playing again.’
★ Our School Development consultants are passionate champions of children’s right to play. If you are interested in implementing play-based learning in your school, please contact us to find out how we can help.
Children’s Commissioner calls for urgent reforms to youth justice system
The Children’s Commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza, has called for a rehaul of youth justice system, with a greater emphasis on rehabilitation over punishment, putting education at its core. This follows a new report that tracks the experiences of 950 young people both before and during their time in youth custody, exploring the shared disadvantages they face.
At any given time, around 400 children are held in just 14 youth settings of differing structures and quality in England and Wales. Evidence shows that 77% were persistently or severely absent in their most recent year at school – a rate three times higher than that of their peers (24% in 2021-22). When looking at rates of severe absences only, this was more than 20 times higher (35%, compared to 1.7%). More than half of these children were out of education for at least one academic year before moving into a secure setting, with some missing three or more academic years. Additionally, 25% had been permanently excluded while at school. By contrast, there were eight permanent exclusions per 10,000 pupils in state-funded schools in 2021-22.
Children in custody were five times more likely to have an Education Health and Care (EHC) Plan compared to pupils in state-funded education. Only 20% of those who sat an English and maths GCSE passed, compared with around 70% of their peers. The report finds a number of challenges that affect the quality of education being delivered in youth custody. For example, children are often grouped based on their safety, rather than interest or ability, which restricts educational choices and limits their engagement. Additionally, recruiting qualified teachers for children with complex needs remains a major challenge. Another significant challenge is the disruption to learning, as short custodial sentences and remand status for children awaiting trial make it hard to maintain continuity in education.
In order to prevent young people from being affected by violence and criminality, Dame Rachel de Souza makes a number of recommendations. This includes making schools a statutory safeguarding partner alongside local authorities, health services and police. She proposes a single-child plan to coordinate all multi-agency support for young people, to be regularly reviewed at least every year and when a child moves to a new local authority. The plan should give schools the ability to commission support services from health and social care when children’s attendance starts to deteriorate. Additionally, de Souza says all school exclusions should lead to an intervention. Behaviour policies should outline how sanctions, including suspensions, permanent exclusions and isolation, ‘will be a trigger point for additional support.’ Alongside this, the commissioner calls on the government to invest in mainstream schools to create more inclusive learning environments.
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