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Follow on Google News | Latest Government Figures Reveal Truancy Is At Record HighGovernment figures relesed today show a jump of 0.4% in unauthorised absence.
By: Livewire PR According to a recent survey conducted by Truancy Call Ltd, 76.5 per cent of its schools have seen an increase in pupil attendance since installing Truancy Call. Neville Coles, Principal at Priory Community School, Somerset, comments: “Truancy Call has aided our school’s strategy to improve attendance and within two years our rate of unauthorised absence has dropped from nine percent to four percent, bringing us in line with the Government’s attendance target.” An increasing number of parents are prosecuted for allowing their children to miss school. Truancy Call Ltd’s Term Time Tracker service enables Local Authorities (LAs) and schools to monitor term-time absences. It acts as a reminder to parents and pupils about their agreed absences and helps schools to monitor the safety and welfare of the pupil during his/her time away from school. Stephen Clarke, Managing Director, Truancy Call Ltd, comments: “By maintaining efficient communication with parents, schools can work together with them to spot early warning signs of anti-social behaviour such as truancy, which in turn affects achievement. If students are truanting, they are not in school learning and reaching their full potential. “If the Government is to take real action against parents taking children out of school during term-time and stop potentially vulnerable groups of young people from slipping through the net, Local Authorities need to have a coherent and systematic approach to monitoring and tracking pupils. Parents are breaking the law if they fail to ensure their child’s regular attendance at school, so holiday applications need to be closely monitored. Taking children away from school during term-time for whatever reason can disrupt their education, particularly at a crucial stage in their school career.” Eileen O’Hara, Assistant Headteacher at The Warwick School, Surrey, comments: "Parents are pleased to know they will be alerted if their child cannot be accounted for at registration. At induction evenings for new parents the inclusion of our approach to attendance, including Truancy Call, helps to identify our ethos as a school. This has been a school in challenging circumstances and as a result of a number of initiatives, including Truancy Call, attendance has risen from 89.6 per cent to 92.7 per cent since September 2007. The school has come out of a 'notice to improve' and attendance is now in line with the national average.” Dr Rowena Blencowe, Headteacher at Stafford Sports College, adds: “Truancy Call has cut the amount of time we spend contacting parents as previously we had to call them individually but now we press a button and the system does the job for us.” Truancy Call Ltd’s technology allows Headteachers to inform the whole school community about attendance and learning progress, including parents, governors, students and teachers, as well as Ofsted inspectors. The system stores all the data for the business manager to see which messages have been sent to parents, on which date and replies received. They can make decisions based on these. For example, if no response is received from a parent within 15 days, they need to decide whether to arrange a home visit to explore the situation further. Previously, they could not so easily log how frequently parents had been called. For further information about Truancy Call Ltd, please contact 0870 046 4246 or visit the website: www.truancycall.com. *Secondary schools with more than 7% persistently absent pupils and primary schools with more than 2.4% persistently absent pupils are classed as having a high persistent absence rate. A persistent absentee is defined by the Government as a pupil who is absent for more than 20% of all possible half days. Issued: Notes to editors: To arrange an interview with Stephen Clarke, MD of Truancy Call Ltd, or one of the schools featured in this document, please contact Livewire Public Relations, on 020 8339 7431 or email: info@livewirepr.com. To download a high resolution image please click here: http://www.livewirepr.com/ About the absence statistics: The statistics report on absence in primary, secondary and special schools, city technology colleges and academies during the 2008/09 school year. It updates and supplements information published in the October release - 'Pupil Absence in Schools in England, Autumn Term 2008 and Spring Term 2009'. It is based on pupil level absence data collected via the School Census. The release provides information on the levels of absence (authorised, unauthorised and overall) by type of school; absence rates by pupil characteristics (such as gender, free school meal eligibility, ethnic group and special educational needs); the percentage of pupils by number of days absence; as well as summary statistics on persistent absentees (the percentage of absence these pupils account for; their characteristics; The absence rates show the percentages of half days missed as reported via the School Census. Download the latest statistics: http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/ Statistics for each Local Authority area available to download: http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/ (PLEASE SCROLL ALONG THE TABS ON THE SPREADSHEET) End
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