A new study finds that 67% of all persistent absentees with attendance below 90% were considered “not school ready” when they entered reception compared with 37% of children “not school ready” who were not persistently absent.
Researchers from the University of Leeds analysed data for over 60,000 children aged five to 13 from across the Bradford district alongside school absence records from 2012/2013 and 2019/2020.
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They say that schools readiness assessments can identify both academic and non-academic signs a child is not ready to enter reception. The report also states that "previous research suggests that such assessments can indicate later ‘vulnerability’. For example, school readiness assessments have been used to identify children at risk of autism and special educational needs (SEN) more generally".
It concludes that “that the seeds of absenteeism are sown early in childhood and that school readiness measures already used by teachers could identify children at risk of long-term disengagement from the education system”.
Nearly a quarter of all pupils missed at least 39 half-day sessions in the 2022/23 autumn term, with the impact of the Covid pandemic attributed to the rise of absenteeism.
Children who were eligible for free school meals were more likely to be persistently absent, and children of Pakistani heritage had significantly lower odds of becoming a persistent absentee compared with children of White British heritage, according to the research.
Lead author Dr Megan Wood, a post-doctoral research fellow in the School of Psychology at the University of Leeds, said: “School is where children develop and flourish, academically, emotionally, socially, and physically.
“However, as a society, we are edging towards a school absence epidemic, with many pupils missing out on opportunities to thrive by not attending every day. This has worsened dramatically since the pandemic.
“It is often too late to intervene once the problems have already begun. Instead, preventative measures should be adopted to avoid children disengaging from school in the first place.”
The researchers suggested that increased parental engagement and identification of underlying neurodivergence and mental health issues can act as preventative measures to reduce absenteeism.
This comes as a study from University College London, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, found that high-achieving children from low-income backgrounds fall behind their wealthier peers academically by age 14.
