More kids 'missing from school on Fridays'

More pupils have been missing school on Fridays since the pandemic because their parents are at home, the Children's Commissioner for England has said.

Dame Rachel de Souza told the Commons Education Select Committee that levels of persistent absence where children miss over 10% of school time - remain high following Covid-19.

She said figures estimate that 818,000 of the 1.6 million children who were persistently absent across the autumn and spring terms in 2021/22 were off school for reasons other than illness.

She told MPs that discussions with families have exposed a number of reasons why the pandemic is still having a negative impact on attendance.

An analysis of attendance data, she said, suggests some pupils are now not going to school on Fridays, a trend which did not exist before the pandemic.

She said the number of Friday absences was “huge” and that it wasn't there before, adding that, since the pandemic, many parents are at home on Fridays.”

She told MPs: "We need our children back to school. There is also a group of pupils who have just not come back since the pandemic.

"This is one of the issues of our age. We need our children back in school.”

Alice Wilcock, head of education at the Centre for Social Justice think tank, told MPs: "We are seeing a great shift towards disengagement with education.

"Local authorities said to us that the pandemic taught parents that sometimes school is important and sometimes it's not, and that is now really ingrained in our attendance patterns."