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In recent research published at the turn of 2024, 28% of parents no longer believe that school attendance is mandatory. This represents a marked shift since the pandemic and is reflected in the most recent attendance tracker data from the Centre for Social Justice which showed the overall absence rate in Spring 2023 was 7.0 per cent. This is an increase of 2.1 percentage points since before the pandemic.
The number of severely absent pupils has soared by 133.6 per cent since the pandemic. In Spring 2023, 140,706 pupils were absent more often than they were present (severely absent), 1.96 per cent of the school population. This is a return to the record levels seen in Summer 2022. This compares with 60,244 who were severely absent in Autumn 2019, the last full term before the pandemic, equating to an additional 80,462 pupils.
Vulnerable children are affected most. In Autumn 2022, the latest term for which data is available, children in receipt of Free School Meals (FSM) had a severe absence rate which was triple the rate for children who were not eligible for FSM. Children in receipt of special educational needs (SEN) support are also more likely to be severely absent than their peers.
Persistent absence is still at a concerningly high level compared to pre-pandemic. 1,476,165 pupils were persistently absent in Spring 2023, which equates to 20.6 per cent of all pupils. This is a decrease on the previous term, Autumn 2022 , but is an increase of 60.0 per cent since before the pandemic.
Part of the problem is that parents are not seeing schools as being as relevant in their lives and are no longer seeing the value in sending their children in every day. Whilst there has been much comment recently about the broken social contract between schools and parents there is undoubtedly a secondary driver which needs attention, namely parental engagement.
Many parents of children in school are Millennials – tech savvy, world aware and eco-orientated at their core. Importantly, this parent generation spend more time with their children than ever before and use social media as their parenting bible. Indeed, 79% of parents say they mostly use their social networks to garner parenting advice and support with over 80% of mums using Facebook. Daily social media usage exceeds two hours, so roughly 5x the time given to homework support.
Their ‘go-to’ reference points are no longer schools but rather celebrities and peers. Not schools and not teachers. That’s a massive shift and one which partly underpins the 28% who do not believe attendance to be mandatory. Schools need to realise that part of the solution is for them to become more relevant and recover their status as a ‘trusted source’ online.
As someone who spent many years in advertising before entering education, the golden rule always is to really understand your audience well if you’re trying to sell them something. Attendance – or rather why it is important – is clearly something that needs selling to at least 1 in 4 parents, and now.
If the message – the ‘why school is important’ drumbeat – is to resonate, then you have to be where you audience will engage and that is on social media. There’s no rocket-science here, just a recognition that behaviours have shifted, and so therefore must schools. In short, teach parents to love school again by becoming relevant and part of their parenting bible.
From our research, we know that the biggest challenge to modern parents is time. 25% call this out as their single biggest challenge to parenting and this is where schools can make immediate impact. Start thinking about how social can help support home learning better; how parenting advice can be pushed via social and how classes (yes you already have an informal network!) can be leveraged to create a supportive community.
Start by using Facebook to do more than share and celebrate good things in school. Explore how Groups can be established to create engagement and push content and resources which help parents save time when supporting home learning. Two simple steps will start the journey towards making schools more relevant and valued. Once this is achieved then some might realise that their children attending school is actually a good thing.
