Attendance and truancy

Charlie Taylor is right – the best place for children is in school. But the responsibility is shared between parents – who have a social responsibility and a duty to educate their child – and schools – which have a responsibility to engage children and young people in the education process.

For primary schools, engagement should be relatively easy; with secondary schools, and with older pupils, engagement is decidedly more challenging, especially when employment seems a distant dream. And there are other reasons for non-engagement, including bullying. But again I agree with Charlie Taylor that habits of good attendance, and truancy, start young.

So the simplification of the fines system and the removal of child benefit might have an impact, though there must remain a duty on schools to provide support first, and only to use financial sanctions as a last resort – and the courts should seek evidence that this really is the case before imposing a fine.

On term-time holidays, the culture needs to change, but I fear that "middle-class truancy" with parents taking children out of school for a cheaper annual holiday won't be affected – the fine, unless large, will simply be seen as an additional tax. What must be shifted is the culture, so that, like not wearing seat belts in cars, term-time holidays are simply seen as unacceptable. As I've said previously, fining parents for this reason is difficult and uncommon.

But the underlying issue is that the legislation (back to 1944) places a duty on parents to educate their children, not to send them to a state school. That's why home education (and private education) are allowed. Unless the fundamental legislation is changed, truancy and attendance will remain problematic.