Parents permitting youngsters to skip college on Friday as they work at home, Tory says

Parents are allowing their children to skip school on Fridays while they work from home, the Education Secretary has suggested.

Gillian Keegan said deliberately taking children out of school was “unacceptable”, pointing to figures that 50,000 more pupils are “regularly” absent at the end of the week compared with the start. She said schools are facing “major challenges” with absenteeism as 157,000 students are now missing more than half of their lessons.

Ms Keegan blamed a rise in working from home, which boomed over the pandemic, as well as parents pulling their children out of class for weekends away or holidays. Kids are also said to be skipping school due to rise in youth mental health issues, which worsened over the lockdowns.

The Tory minister suggested kids with mild anxiety should be expected to attend school. Her call comes as maximum fines for school absences are to increase to £80 in September.

But experts warned the Government must do more to support children and families who are facing mental health challenges. More than a quarter of a million kids and young people who were referred to mental health services in 2022-23 are still waiting for support, according to research by the Children’s Commissioner in March.

Student absenteeism jumps by 20% on the last day of the working week, according to an analysis of official figures. Overall absence rates are 6.6% on Wednesdays and rise to 7.8% on Fridays, with primary pupils 21% more likely to be absent on Friday and 24% more likely to be absent without a reason, research by the Times found.

Unauthorised holidays are also said to be up 25% on pre-Covid levels. Some 150,000 children at state schools were classed as severely absent for the 2022-23 school year, up 30,000 from the year before. It is also 150% higher than the 60,000 who were severely absent in 2018-19, before the pandemic, according to government statistics.

Ms Keegan said “the Covid pandemic has had a major impact on school attendance” and there were “still too many children whose attendance hasn’t recovered” following lockdowns. She said she wants to see normal school attendance return, telling parents: “It is unacceptable to take a deliberate decision to take your child out of school.”

The Tory MP for Chichester said there needs to be a move from the Covid-era trend of kids being out of school with runny noses and minor conditions. She said support systems such as attendance hubs and mentors could make “a massive difference” for schools and parents.

“Where this support-first approach does not work, we have increased the minimum fine by £20, to £80,” she said. “Every day a child is absent they will miss on average five to six lessons, time they never get back”.

But Beth Prescott, a researcher at think-tank the Centre for Social Justice, warned ministers not to blame parents. “The main drivers of the school attendance crisis is mental health and anxiety in children,” she told the Times. “Despite the education secretary saying absence is a top priority, the actual response has not reflected that at all. The government should do more to support children and families.”

Pepe Di’Iasio, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, added: “High rates of pupil absence are being driven by factors such as poor mental health, unmet special educational needs, and families who are struggling to cope, and these are just not being adequately addressed by the government.”