North bucks truancy trend
Feb 27 2008 by Jule Wilson, The Journal
SCHOOL truancy levels in the North East have fallen in the last year, new figures have revealed.
But yesterday statistics from by the Department of Children, Schools and Families reveals that one in every 22 children in the region is classed as a persistent truant, missing an average of one day of school each week.
But figures for both persistent truanting and overall unauthorised absence fell in the region in 2006-7.
Pupils in Newcastle were the worst offenders, with 6.7% of primary and secondary school pupils classed as being persistently absent.
In Gateshead, the figure was 4.5%, Northumberland’s was 4.4% and both Durham and North Tyneside recorded a score of 4.1%.
Vince Allen, regional spokesman for the biggest teachers’ union, the NUT, said: “The union is well aware of the long-term link between high levels of truancy and social deprivation and many of the areas that continue to have rising levels of persistent absenteeism have chronic employment problems.
“I think that in the past this was seen as a problem for individual schools to deal with, whereas schools are now working collectively towards the goal of reducing these numbers.”
Nationally, truancy in England’s schools rose to record levels last year, with about 63,000 pupils skipping classes every day.
The rate of “unauthorised absence” rose to its highest on record, with pupils away for 1% of all school sessions, up from 0.92% the previous year. But the North East bucked this trend and recorded the country’s lowest levels of truancy, with children missing 0.81% of lessons.
Chris Keates, general secretary of the teaching union the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, said: “Schools are to be congratulated for the significant improvements in attendance figures. Clearly, however, a core of persistent truants remain.”
A Northumberland County Council spokesman said: “We are raising awareness among schools of absence trends, to identify students with attendance problems early. We work with parents, and if children still fail to attend school, would issue a penalty notice.
“In the last academic year, we issued 44 penalty notices to parents and there have been numerous prosecutions.”
Ian Clennell, acting head of the education welfare service for Newcastle City Council, said: “We take unauthorised absence very seriously and where appropriate will use legal sanctions against the parents of children who are unacceptably absent.”
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