Lord Taylor of Warwick – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Taylor of Warwick on 2014-03-26.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to tackle unauthorised absences of pupils during term-time.

Lord Nash

We know from evidence that pupils who have regular attendance at school are four times more likely to achieve five or more A*-C grades at GCSE including English and maths than those pupils who are persistently absent. This is why the Department for Education reduced the threshold at which pupils are classified as being persistently absent, from 20 to 15 per cent of school missed. This measure enables schools to identify earlier those pupils with troubling attendance patterns, and to do something about them.

In 2012, we increased the level of the school attendance penalty fines of £50 and £100 to £60 and £120 respectively; and in 2013 reduced the overall timescales for paying fines from 42 to 28 days. Our reforms are working. In 2012/13, 300,895 pupils were persistently absent, down from 433,130 in 2009/10. This is a fall of almost a third. 130,000 fewer pupils were missing 15% of school in 2012/13 compared to 2010/11.