Ofsted released a report today on the numbers of children missing out on education through absenteeism.
As reported in April this year, the Isle of Wight is the bottom of the table for the number of pupils missing school, putting us 150th out of 150 Local authorities.
What is alarming is the growing trend of absenteeism on the Island when it is reducing across the country.
Risen steadily over the last five years
The trend is clearly illustrated in the graph above, included in papers going to the Children and Young People Scrutiny Panel on 27th November.
Overall, absence rates within the secondary sector on the Isle of Wight have risen steadily over the last five years.
The papers do indicate that unvalidated provisional absence figures for 2012-13 in secondary schools show a minuscule decrease of 0.3% to 8.1%, but this will still leave the Isle of Wight lagging significantly behind other areas.
Ofsted is shining a spotlight on these failings
Sir Michael Wilshaw, HM Chief Inspector of Ofsted said:
“As my Access and Achievement report highlighted in June, there can be no greater responsibility than to ensure our most vulnerable children have the best chance of a decent education. Today’s report focuses on pupils missing from full-time education who may become “invisible” to local authorities who have a duty to arrange suitable alternative education for them.
“It is simply not acceptable that only a third of local authorities have a detailed understanding of what is happening to pupils who are not receiving full-time education. Ofsted is shining a spotlight on these failings. Our new arrangements for inspecting children’s social care services, which starts this month, will request a specific report on school-age children who are not attending full-time education.
“Everyone must take greater responsibility for knowing where these children are. We owe it to them to ensure they are safe and can succeed.”
Awaiting answers from the council
OnTheWight posed a series of questions to the council on absenteeism earlier today but at the time of publishing, had not received a response.
As usual, we’ll update readers once we hear back from the council.
The reports
More detail can be found on both reports embedded below for your convenience.
