Cuts in pastoral support in schools are making it harder to encourage children to return after the COVID pandemic, council leaders have told MPs.
In evidence to the Commons education select committee the Local Government Association (LGA) said budget cuts were forcing some schools to ‘manage’ students out of classrooms.
Others were disguising their attendance records or ‘off-rolling’ students to artificially boost school exam results.
MPs heard claims that parents are more cautious about sending their children to school with minor ailments as a result of public health messaging during the pandemic.
The latest attendance data reveals that absences in the spring term this year were still 50% higher than before the pandemic, while in 2021-22 more than one in five secondary pupils were ‘persistently absent’ for missing 10% or more of sessions.
The LGA said there were increasing numbers of children in the mainstream school system with additional needs that can cause barriers to school attendance including trauma, deprivation and poverty.
‘Some schools have managed these pressures by practices to influence which students are admitted or practices designed to manage children out of the school, such as the inappropriate use of attendance codes, part-time timetables, informal exclusions, off-rolling, and inappropriate use of permanent exclusion.’
