Truancy detectives to go knocking on doors

SCHOOLS are employing full-time truancy detectives to track down children believed to be absconding from lessons.

Four schools in Essex will hire two “attendance ambassadors” responsible for following up cases of truancy, with the enforcers given licence to visit the homes of parents whose children are suspected of truancy.

An academy, two primaries and a junior school in Canvey Island have signed up to the trial scheme, which head teachers argue will help improve school attendance.

Sharon Parsons, leader of the Canvey Schools Partnership, said the new positions would reinforce the “value of attendance” in the minds of parents, some of whom can now expect a knock on the door should their child fail to be accounted for during registration.

“It’s not just about tackling truancy – it’s about attendance generally,” she said. “Attendance is an issue at almost every school. You’re lucky if you’re a school without attendance issues. It’s about trying to make all parents see the value of attendance.” Should the scheme prove effective, more schools in the area will be invited to take part.

Stephen Durkin, headmaster at Castle View, which is leading the scheme, said he hoped the steps would be seen as “positive and proactive” among parents.

It comes less than a year after the school introduced a scheme that allowed well-behaved pupils to leave 10 minutes earlier than their counterparts.

Details of the initiative, which is to begin next month, were released to parents in a recent school letter, which warns that they will receive “warning” cards following a truancy visit.

The scheme has been challenged by several parents, who claim that the ambassadors threaten to breach privacy laws and increase the likelihood of confrontation between school staff and parents.

Dave Blackwell, Canvey borough councillor, said that the schools involved should proceed with “extreme caution”, adding that the new roles threatened to create “friction”. He said: “My first reaction is that if someone were to knock on my door and ask where my child was, I would wonder what it had to do with them.”