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Every school in England is to be issued with an AI-generated target for minimum pupil attendance, the government has announced, as part of its continuing efforts to tackle absence in the country’s classrooms.
Headteachers will be given the targets this month in an effort to boost attendance rates, which remain stubbornly below pre-pandemic levels.
Teaching unions, however, instantly dismissed the initiative, saying it would put further pressure on already overloaded school leaders.
“The reality is that schools are already working tirelessly to improve attendance, with many going way above and beyond what should be expected of schools every single day,” the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, Paul Whiteman, said.
“The government issuing them with yet more targets will not help them with that work and is the wrong way to go.”
The general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, Pepe Di’Iasio, said: “We would urge the government to understand the realities in schools rather than issuing yet more diktats dreamt up in Whitehall.
“Schools already move heaven and earth to ensure that all their pupils attend regularly, but many of the factors that contribute to absence are beyond their direct control.
“Setting them individual targets doesn’t resolve those issues, but it does pile yet more pressure on school leaders and staff who are already under great strain.”
Attendance rates overall have improved in England, but official government figures published last month showed that severe absence rates – where pupils miss more than 50% of school sessions – were on the rise again, and according to the Department for Education one in three schools have shown no improvement.
“We can only deliver opportunity for children in our country if they’re in school, achieving and thriving,” the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, said. “That’s why I want every school to play its part in getting attendance back to and beyond pre-pandemic levels.”
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The target a school is given will be based on attendance levels achieved by others in similar circumstances, including deprivation, location and pupils’ needs. Targets will not be published and will not be accessible to the schools inspectorate, Ofsted.
Schools will be supported to reach their targets by linking them up with high–performing schools serving similar communities and with similar needs, so headteachers can learn from best practice elsewhere.
“Our best schools already have a brilliant approach to attendance, and now we’re driving that focus everywhere so that all children are supported to attend school and learn,” Phillipson said.
