Agenda item

(Report by – Mrs M Haeusler, Director of Learning Group, Mrs R Turner, Managing Director, Children, Families & Education Directorate and Mrs S Hohler, Cabinet Member for Children, Families & Education Directorate)

(Mr C Berry, Head of Attendance and Behaviour Service (Acting was present for this item))

(1)         The Committee considered a report that outlined the priority in Kent for all schools, working with Local Authority (LA) support, to continue to address high overall absence, and within this, persistent absence (PA).  This supported the delivery goal set by Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), that by 2010/11 no local authority would have more than 5% of its secondary school pupils identified as being persistently absent. This target was described as National Indicator 87 (NI87).

(2)         Members were given the opportunity to make comments and ask questions which included the following:

(3)         In response to a question by Mr Vye, Mr Berry said that it needed to be clear that criteria for persistent absence of more than 20% could be for any reason including a broken leg.  However if a child was absent for a day or a week the school should identify what was in place to improve their attendance.  There was a link with attainment.  He explained that in schools where there was very clear recording analysis, showing clear interventions being made, tended to be the schools that tackled poor attendance levels and also showed improving attainment levels.  He felt that there was also a link with those schools that were being creative and flexible.  The Schools Improvement Partners were able to offer support and the ability to challenge the school on provision it was making so that the school was a place where the children wanted to be. For the DCSF and OFSTED these were extremely high profile areas over the past two years.  

(4)         In response to questions by Mr Critchley, Mr Berry assured Members that regarding areas of deprivation Kent was not different to other parts of the country and that Kent was showing improvement in not just bringing down levels of persistent absence where there were social issues but the gap was also narrowing between attendance and absence records in the most deprived areas compared to the least deprived areas.  Where school was not important and valued by parents that was where it was most difficult to change the entrenched apathy towards school and education.  Links with the size of Kent meant that to reduce absence by 0.01% in Kent you would need to change the entrenched attitude of 78 pupils, the statistical analysis acted against Kent.

(5)         In response to a question by Mr Walder, Mr Berry advised that the DCSF was being lobbied regarding the advice that it was giving on extreme weather conditions that it was better for schools attendance figures for them to close where the absence figures would not count against their overall figures.  If the school remained open the school would have to make a judgement on whether a child could have made it into school and whether they were marked absent or not.  This was felt unfair on the school and required greater clarity.

(6)         RESOLVED that:

(a)   the Scrutiny Board endorse the setting up of a  Member Monitoring Group to look at Attainment, not overlapping the work of the Attainment Select Committee; and

(b)   the responses to comments and questions made by Members and the report be noted.