Jim Shannon – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2014-04-01.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the incidence of truancy was in schools in the latest period for which figures are available; and what steps he is taking to reduce it and to involve parents in those efforts.

Elizabeth Truss

Since the report by Charlie Taylor on improving school attendance, the Government’s focus has been on reducing absence overall and encouraging schools to address patterns of poor attendance early.

To help schools do this, the Department for Education reduced the threshold at which pupils were classified as persistent absent, from 20% to 15% of sessions missed. In 2012, we increased the level of the school attendance penalty fines, from £50 and £100 to £60 and £120 respectively, and in 2013 reduced the overall timescales for paying fines from 42 to 28 days. The second most common reason for absence is family holiday, so we tightened the law in September 2013 so that headteachers could only grant requests for leave during term time in exceptional circumstances.

Our reforms are working. In 2012/13, 300,895 pupils were persistently absent, down from 433,130 in 2009/10 – a fall of almost a third. 130,000 fewer pupils were missing 15% of school in 2012/13 compared to 2010/11. Overall absence rates are down from 6.3% of possible sessions missed in 2008/09 to 5.2% in 2012/13.