MANCHESTER LETTER: Local authorities in Britain are taking tougher action to deal with truancy
THE POSTERS at bus stops around Piccadilly railway station in Manchester are simply worded, reflecting the clarity of the writer and the scale of the challenge in getting the message across. “Taking off in term-time could land you with a fine. It’s called truancy. As a parent you are legally responsible for making sure that your child is in school. Otherwise you could face a fine,” they state.
Manchester has one of the worst truancy records in England. Three of the 10 schools with the worst records lie within the Greater Manchester Council’s area. In one – the Manchester Creative and Media Academy for Boys – nearly 22 per cent of the school’s 602 pupils, ranging in age from 11 to 19, missed at least one day’s worth of classes per week last year.
Besides the poster campaign, tougher action is now being taken. About 400 parents have been convicted in the last 18 months for failing to get their children to class. In Oldham, one of the council’s outlying towns, 240 parents were prosecuted in the last school year.
Some were forced subsequently to sign contracts saying they would mend their ways, while some of their children are now being escorted every morning.
Some progress has been made. Teachers and truancy officers called to 3,000 homes, while the officers carried out spot-checks at schools, checking the register before visiting the homes of students missing that day. More than 2,500 warning letters were sent out, along with more than 500 penalty notices of £100 each, leading to 1,500 pupils to improve their behaviour.
Figures from the Department of Education for 2008/09, though, reveal a dismal picture. Some 67,290 pupils skipped school without permission every day of that school year, while 10 million days in total were lost by six million pupils – a 44 per cent rise in truancy since 1996/7 and the highest level recorded since statistics were first collected from all schools in 1993.
In some cases, the figures hide an even worse problem. In one survey, Ofsted, the school inspection agency, found that one in 50 of all pupils challenged by truancy patrols was not registered with any school, with some schools ejecting students whom they were unable to control, or discipline, without notifying their local authority, as they are required to do by law.
“This disregard for procedures and legal requirements puts the child at risk. One local authority officer called these backdoor exclusions – the ‘Don’t come
back until we tell you’ types. Some young people and their parents take this instruction literally and the young person is at home for weeks before this is then picked up as non-attendance,” said an Ofsted report last year.
One local authority questioned by Ofsted said it was aware of 1,113 children missing from its schools a year ago, but six months later it still had not tracked down 438 of them. Another, bizarrely, only became aware of the existence of a family that had moved into its area under the witness protection programme when one of the children was picked up by police after committing a crime.
Under Department of Education regulations, schools are supposed to take attendance registers twice a day: once in the morning and again in the afternoon, indicating which pupils of compulsory school age are absent, and whether the absence has been authorised by the school, or not.
An analysis of those entitled to free school meals highlights the fact that truancy is worst among those who are already entering the education system at a disadvantage. In 2008/9, 7.3 per cent of this group were “persistent absentees” – truant 64 times, or more during a school year.
The situation gets worse as the child gets older, unless action is taken. In the final year of second level, 8.4 per cent of the free school meal group have disappeared for stretches at a time, according to Department of Education.
Differences are shown up, too, by ethnicity. Irish Travellers and Roma gypsies have the worst attendance records – 24.44 per cent and 19.05 per cent respectively – and the figures err on the low side, education officials believe.
The absence rate of children from Asian and mixed-ethnic backgrounds are above average; the figures for black and Chinese are below.
Nearly 10 per cent of white British children, both boys and girls, on free school meals are persistently out of school.
Throughout the UK, local authorities are trying different courses to curb the problem. In Glasgow, pupils at 15 schools were kept in the grounds and offered activities alongside healthy food. Afternoon attendance improved, while there was less bullying and teasing among pupils, while teachers reported a fall in the numbers turning up late for classes.
Back in Manchester’s Creative and Media Academy, executive principal Barry Fishwick has vowed that the 600-strong school will not be given a black mark again: “This is the last time that this academy will be registered as the worst in the country. This will not happen again,” he told a local newspaper.
However, the academy’s place on the offenders’ list is not a verdict on Tony Blair’s determination to set up academies free of local authority control – a policy that has been taken up with zeal by the Conservative education secretary Michael Gove – since it was only founded in September 2009 after a failing school was taken over.
