School absences on the Isle of Wight have remained at largely the same level despite warning notices for parents being introduced.
Overall the figure has dropped by 0.1 per cent to 4.9 per cent (secondary schools falling 0.1 per cent to 6.1, primary schools remaining at four per cent).
Strategies now fully embedded
Cabinet member for children’s services, education and skills, Cllr Paul Brading said the strategies the council had put in place were fully embedded and working, but there was an issue with persistent absence at secondary schools that they were aware of.
A report, which went before the Isle of Wight Council’s children’s education scrutiny committee, said indicative figures from census data demonstrated improvement with overall and persistent absences when compared to the previous academic year.
Persistent absence at secondary schools
Persistent absences in secondary schools which were higher than the national average.
Persistent absences occur when a pupil misses 10 per cent of their lessons and it has been suggested that for every five per cent of missed lessons, pupils can perform an average of one grade lower in KS4 exams.
Poor attendance affects exam results
Cllr Brading said he was a firm believer that better attendance at school could lead to better exam results and hopes when the figures were officially published, and a report came back to the scrutiny committee, the gap will ‘narrow further’.
Special schools on the Island are consistently below the national average in absence areas with overall absences at 1.6 per cent compared to 10.2 nationally.
The biggest cause of absence was illness with unauthorised absences second.
Strategies used to control absences
Some of the strategies used by the council to control school absences include monitoring visits, service level agreements with schools and families and parents being held to account.
Early interventions are also increasing to help prevent absences — 1,015 school attendance meetings — face-to-face meetings with parents and pupils where poor attendance patterns are emerging — took place in 2018/19, a 15 per cent increase on the previous years.
A new process introduced school attendance warning notices — if a pupil had ten unauthorised absences in a rolling 12-week period. In 18/19, 668 warning notices were issued on 418 children.
This article is from the BBC’s LDRS (Local Democracy Reporter Service) scheme, which OnTheWight is taking part in. Some alterations and additions may be been made by OnTheWight. Ed
