Home working by parents has helped contribute to an ‘unacceptable’ rise in pupils skipping school on Fridays, the education secretary has said.
According to Gillian Keegan 50,000 more pupils were absent at the end of the week compared with Mondays, with schools facing “major challenges” as parents pull their children out of class for holidays and long weekends.
She said government figures have shown that school absences jump by 20% on Fridays while unauthorised holidays are up 25% on pre-Covid levels.
About 1.7 million pupils are missing more than 10% of lessons – double pre-pandemic levels.
The education secretary told The Times that “the Covid pandemic has had a major impact on school attendance” and acknowledged that there were “still too many children whose attendance hasn’t yet recovered”.
Keegan said: “We are very clear – it is unacceptable to take a deliberate decision to take your child out of school.”
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She is also said to want to move on from Covid-era expectations that children with runny noses and other minor ailments should stay at home, while emphasising that those with mild anxiety should also be expected to attend school.
Keegan linked Friday absences with parents’ flexible work: “There are still major challenges with data showing unauthorised holiday absence increasing by 25% and that there are regularly 50,000 more pupil absences on a Fridays compared with Mondays, which could be linked with many parents working from home.”
The problem is most acute at primary schools, where pupils are 21% more likely to be absent on Friday, with 24% more likely to be absent without a reason.
Keegan said help such as attendance hubs and mentors could tackle the problem but where this failed to improve matters fines were increasing from £20 to £80.
According to a poll by the Centre for Social Justice, almost three in 10 parents think that the pandemic showed it was not essential for children to attend school every day.
Dame Rachel D’Souza, the children’s commissioner for England, told MPs last year that attitudes had changed since the pandemic. She said: “We’ve had evidence from kids as well – ‘you know mum and dad are at home, stay at home’.”
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But Pepe Di’Iasio, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that while there was a staying at home problem on Fridays, high rates of pupil absence was broadly “driven by factors such as poor mental health, unmet special educational needs, and families who are struggling to cope”.
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