Parents to register home-schooled youngsters below Labour plan to curb absence disaster

Home-schooled youngsters must be registered by regulation below plans by Labour to curb persistent absence charges.

Shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson will unveil the proposals in a serious speech right this moment as a part of a faculty attendance crackdown. Long time period absence charges shot up after the pandemic and heads are struggling to get youngsters again into class following the lengthy Covid lockdowns.

One in 5 youngsters (21.5%) in England had been persistently absent throughout the Autumn and Spring phrases of final 12 months – which means they missed 10% of their classes. This is greater than double the quantity who often missed class throughout the identical interval in 2018/19 (10.5%), in line with Department for Education information.

Labour warned the variety of youngsters persistently absent from faculty might rise to multiple in 4 in 2025/26 except pressing motion is taken. It comes after a latest ballot for the Centre for Justice think-tank discovered one in 4 mother and father has mentioned they do not suppose their little one has to go to high school every day.

Labour would create a register of youngsters who aren’t in class and use AI to identify developments in absence charges to get a grip on the problem. Ms Phillipson will say: “The difference a Labour government will bring is clear: as in 1964, as in 1997, a party that puts children first, a government that makes education its priority. A country where education is about excellence for everyone, where schools deliver high and rising standards for all our children.”

Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, mentioned: “Current absence rates are alarming with twice as many children persistently absent compared to the rate from before the pandemic. If children are not in school, they cannot learn. It is as simple as that.”

NEU General Secretary Daniel Kebede said: “We welcome Labour’s dedication to make schooling its precedence if it wins the subsequent election. They can have a lot injury to restore after over a decade of neglect and underinvestment by this Government.”

The Tory Government has been promising to create a register since 2021. However ministers ditched the Schools Bill, which would have enshrined it in law, and there was no mention of the idea in last year’s King’s Speech. Backbencher Flick Drummond has put forward a private members bill but it needs parliamentary time to progress.

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan insisted on Monday that tackling persistent absence is her “primary precedence”. She said: “We need all our kids to have the perfect begin in life as a result of we all know that attending faculty is important to a baby’s wellbeing, improvement, and attainment in addition to affect future profession success.”

She unveiled 18 new attendance hubs across six regions, which will help local schools that are struggling to get children back into class. The Government is also going to fund a £15million attendance mentor pilot programme with the charity Barnardos, which is already being trialled in Middlesbrough, Doncaster, Knowsley, Salford, and Stoke-on-Trent.