At the beginning of the year, the Isle of Wight council issued a press release stating that secondary school absenteeism rates on the Island were now “in line with the national average”.
Bottom 10% of league table
Official figures released yesterday by the Department for Education reveal that although there has been improvement in the secondary school absenteeism rates (well done to all involved), the Isle of Wight is certainly not “in line with the national average”.
Overall absenteeism for secondary schools is recorded as 5.6% against the national average of 4.9%.
Persistent absenteeism in secondary schools came in at 6.9% with the national average at 5.9%.
Although these may seem small differences in the percentage rates, the figures put the Isle of Wight at either 139th or 140th out of 150 local authorities.
Council questioned over press release claims
Dave Miller, a stalwart public scrutineer at council meetings, attended yesterday’s Children’s Executive Advisory Committee to question Executive member responsible for Children’s Service, Cllr Priest. He asked,
“Today, pupil absence data for the autumn term 2013 has been released by the DfE.
“The poor use of statistical data was one area where Hampshire County Council, acting for the Isle of Wight, identified weaknesses with the former administration and Children’s Services, and indeed suppression of such data was also experienced.
“It was with some surprise therefore that in January this year a news release from the LA advised how Island attendance rates were now above, or in line with, current national averages.
“Surprising, not because of the improvement resulting from the hard work put in by various parties, but, because it was not clear how ‘national average’ figures were obtained prior to today’s DfE release, especially given a long term trend of improvement and particularly the introduction of parental fines for holidays in term time – both of which would seriously compromise the validity of any data comparison straddling the academic years.
“Does this Advisory Committee understand the source of such news releases to the public (e.g. HCC, local members, or the LA press office), and would it make any advisory recommendations?
Written reply
Cllr Priest, one of the few councillors who turned up to the meeting (see OnTheWight tweets for background), wasn’t able to provide a verbal reply, despite the letter having been submitted as a written question several days ago, but he told Mr Miller that he’d provide a written reply.
We’re sure that Mr Miller and Cllr Priest will be more than happy to share the reply with readers once it’s been issued.
Council responds
Following publication of this article, a spokesperson from the press office got in touch with a response. It’s a little confusing because our article (and the reference to previous IWC press release) is in relation to secondary schools. This response refers to primary school data.
The said,
“The press release issued in January, which you also reported on, stated that pupil absence levels had fallen when compared to the ‘current national average’ which was, at the time, the levels from 2012.
“This was referred to in the release, which stated ‘Between September and December 2013, attendance levels in primary schools improved by two percentage points when compared to the same period in 2012’ and the information in the press release from January is correct.
“The figures Mr Millar is referring to are the latest figures to be released by the DfE which I understand only came out this week, so therefore they were always likely to be different to the figures quoted in January.”
