Work to tackle school absence

COUNCIL chiefs stressed they are “working really hard” to improve school attendance figures after more than 180 penalty notices were issued over absences in the past year.

Hartlepool Borough Council officers noted they have a “number of actions for the offence of irregular school attendance” available to them, with legal sanctions considered “only as a last resort”.

In the academic year 2022/23 the council’s attendance team issued 187 penalty notices and prosecuted on 96 occasions over absences from schools.

Officers stressed the council and schools are “working closely” with a Department for Education (DfE) attendance adviser “looking at the barriers preventing school attendance and what actions can be taken”.

The figures were provided in a report which went before the latest meeting of the council’s children’s services committee. Statistics for secondary schools and academies showed the attendance rate for pupils in Hartlepool was 89.3% for 2022/23, below the national average of 91% and down on the 90.1% recorded in the town in 2021/22. The level of “persistent absence” across the local authority for secondary schools also rose to 31.7%, which equates to 1,942 pupils, compared to 29.6% last year. The DfE defines “persistently absent” as having an attendance rate of 90% or less, with the national average for 2022/23 being 27.7%.

Figures show a more positive picture for primary schools in the town, with the attendance rate being 93.9%, up from the 2021/22 figure of 93.6% and above the national average of 93.7%.

The “persistent absence” rate in primary schools for 2022/23 was just 17.2%, equating to 1,143 pupils, which was below both the national average of 17.7% and the 2021/22 figure in Hartlepool of 19.2%.

Jackie Webb, council inclusion coordinator, said the “main reasons” for absence were illness, unauthorised holidays in term time, unauthorised absences and suspensions/ exclusions.

The meeting heard many schools are seeing a “societal change in parental attitude toward school attendance” following the Covid-19 pandemic, which has been attributed to the change in working patterns of parents and carers.