Councils help commissioner identify children missing education
Derren Hayes
Friday, January 21, 2022
A group of local authorities are working with the Children’s Commissioner for England to better understand why some children have failed to return to school over the past year.
Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza is concerned by recent attendance data showing that just 87 per cent of pupils are in school in England, down from 95 per cent pre-pandemic.
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While the fall is partly attributed to children being absent with Covid-19, the Centre for Social Justice also estimates that up to 100,000 pupils dropped off school rolls last term.
The 10 authorities involved in the research project will submit attendance data to the commissioner’s office to identify those children that are no longer in school and highlight the information vacuum about what has happened to them.
The aim is to develop improved ways to identify why some children are not in the classroom or have dropped off school rolls.
The project is a key part of an inquiry by the commissioner into children missing school, an issue that Dame Rachel has identified as a key priority since taking up post nearly a year ago.
The 10 authorities, which have not been named, have been chosen to give a range of socioeconomic, rural and urban settings to test whether there are differences in different parts of the country and between types of authority.
The commissioner hopes to report the findings of the audit of authorities’ data in the spring.
Dame Rachel told BBC Radio 4’s Women’s Hour that she “cannot believe we can't manage to find every child in this country”, adding that she planned to "go out and find them".
"I am going to use the police, or the local safeguarding boards," she said.
"We are going to find the children because I want to talk to them to ask them what's going on and get them in."
Dame Rachel, a former head teacher, said she was worried vulnerable children could fall into criminality.
Last month, the Department for Education launched a new alliance of education experts that will work with children to improve falling school attendance levels.
