Enfield ranked 17th out of 20 outer London boroughs for attendance rates in the last academic year, reports Grace Howarth, Local Democracy Reporter

A child in a classroom — credit Taylor Flowe via Unsplash

School absence rates in Enfield have almost doubled locally as parents have become “more protective” since the Covid-19 pandemic, councillors have been told.

A thriving children and young people scrutiny panel at Enfield Civic Centre heard last night (Wednesday 4th) that the low attendances seen locally since 2020 reflect the national trend.

Ian Hewison, Enfield Council’s head of admissions, attendance and school place planning, said: “When we came back [post lockdown] there was a lot of strikes, there was a lot of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete [Raac] issues and the feedback from parents was, if schools can’t open every day, why should we send our children to school every day.”

He added: “There’s also the expectation that if the parent can work from home a couple of days a week, why can’t the child have one day here and one day there?”

Data collected from the 2023/24 academic year showed Enfield was doing very slightly better than the national average, with a 93.72% attendance rate against the national figure of 93.07%.

However, Enfield’s attendance average is lower than the London rate of 93.87%. The persistent absence rate for London was 17.23%, whereas Enfield’s was 18.07%.

Ian said: “We are lower in seven of the eight metrics we are measured against and in line with the eighth. Comparing us against the 20 outer London boroughs, we sit 17th.”

Peter Nathan, the director of education, said “sickness” was another “common reason” for absences.

He said: “Quite a few schools I’ve worked with said ‘get them into school’ but that isn’t always the approach. It’s about turning that around, parents care for their children but, on the other hand, the children do need to be in school, so it’s also about attitude.”

Ian said the implementation of new ‘school attendance guidance’ from the Department for Education (DfE), which came into force in August amid the increasing absence rates, had “helped” the situation.

All state schools are now required to share their daily attendance registers with the local authority and DfE. The number of attendance hubs has increased in a bid to raise the number of resources that provide best practice and targeted support to schools.

Parents will also face increased fines for unauthorised absences, with fines rising from £60 to £80 if paid within 21 days, and from £120 to £160 if paid within 28 days. A national attendance ambassador has also been appointed to work with schools and further the work of the hubs.

Ian said: “The short-term goal is for us to have better overall attendance and lower absences. We hope to match outer London in two years time and in four years we hope to be in the top 25% of the outer London boroughs.”

While absence rates are on the rise, the borough’s low exclusion rates were described as “amazing”.

Ian said: “We are the third lowest in London for permanent exclusions and we are the sixth lowest nationally for permanent exclusions. We’ve not had a single permanent exclusion for eight years in the primary sector as well.”

The national suspension rate is 9.33% while Enfield’s rate is 5.9%, placing it in the top quarter of performance.

Mark Maidens, head of service for primary behaviour support, put this success down to “effective partnership working”, listing education psychology service and child and adolescent mental health services as key partners. He added Enfield was now advising other boroughs on how to achieve similarly low figures.

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