Agenda item

10:55

Report by the School Absence and Attendance Working Report (ESC8) TO FOLLOW

A working group was setup by the Education Scrutiny Committee to understand why secondary school absence figures are higher than the national average and work that is being undertaken to address this. To achieve these aims, the working group has met with officers to consider government guidance and performance information and visited four secondary schools across the County.

This is the second of three deep dives commissioned by the Committee. The first deep dive looked at school exclusions and the final deep dive will look at educational attainment.

The key message identified through the deep dive was the importance of embedding a culture in schools that promotes inclusion and good attendance practices across staff, pupils and parents. The working group has been able to highlight a number of examples of this good practice in secondary schools across Oxfordshire.

The group have also identified common themes where work is being undertaken to address barriers to improving school attendance. These themes included access to alternative provision, In Year Fair Access Panels and access to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAHMS).

The Committee is asked to consider and approve the recommendations.

A working group had been setup by the Education Scrutiny Committee to understand why secondary school absence figures in Oxfordshire were higher than the national average and to establish what work was being undertaken to address this. The working group had met with officers to consider government guidance, performance information and had visited schools.

The Education Scrutiny Committee received a report about school attendance figures and identified that secondary school absence was above the local and national average. The Committee established a working group to investigate the reasons for this. The working group sought to understand the trends associated with secondary school absences in the county; highlight areas of good practice and identify barriers that exist to improving attendance including how the local authority was working with schools to overcome this.

The Committee decided to focus on secondary school attendance rates as it found that primary school absence rates in Oxfordshire had historically been in line with or below the national average, yet rates for Oxfordshire secondary schools have been consistently above the regional and national average since 2013-14. In 2016-17, 5.7 half days were lost to absences at Oxfordshire secondary schools compared to 5.2 in the South East and nationally. 13.5% of these absences were classed as ‘persistent absences. Whilst the figure has been decreasing since 2013-14, it was still one of the higher rates in England with the national average being 13.1%.

The overall aim of the deep dive was to gain a greater understanding of trends associated with absence and attendance at secondary schools across Oxfordshire; identifying the pathways that exist to tackle unauthorised and persistent absence and to develop recommendations that enable the sharing of good practice to reduce absence rates across Oxfordshire.

In introducing the Report, The Chairman, Councillor Michael Waine explained that the key outcome identified through the deep dive was the importance of embedding a culture in schools that promoted inclusion and good attendance practices across staff, pupils and parents. The working group had been able to highlight a number of examples of this good practice in secondary schools across Oxfordshire.

The working group had also identified common themes around access to alternative provision, In Year Fair Access Panels and access to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) as areas which could assist in improving school attendance figures. The working group were recommending that the Committee endorsed the work that was underway to develop an Alternative Provision Commissioning Strategy and a revised IYFAP Protocol with involvement from schools.

The Chairman, Councillor Michael Waine thanked Councillor John Howson, together with other members of the Working Group for their support and thanked Deborah Bell, who had been appointed half way through the review and had already made a very positive impact. He further thanked the schools involved for their time and input.

Deborah Bell, Head of Learner Engagement, welcomed the report.  The Council had been successful in a bid for over £5m to provide a one-year pilot of 16 new Mental Health Workers.  The posts would be based in schools in the City – Oxford East and it was the hope that the pilot will be so successful that it will be rolled out across the County.  It was regretful that some other towns across the County would not be getting the provision straight away, but this would hopefully be off-set by a reduction in waiting times for the rest of the County.

She welcomed the fact that March 2019 figures showed that persistent absentees reducing, although primary still remained a concern.  She noted that the local picture reflected the national picture which helped focusing attention where needed.

The Committee noted that persistent absenteeism was very different to children sometimes missing school for family holidays or one-off occasions.  Councillor Matelot moved, Councillor Sanders seconded and it was AGREED that children should lawfully be allowed up to two weeks off a year in term time.