The Department for Education has announced four new hubs to help improve school attendance.
Two new hubs will open in Swindon, and one each will open in Grimsby and Nottinghamshire. It brings the total number of attendance hubs to 14, supporting around 400,000 pupils.
Headteachers’ leaders have welcomed the announcement but warned that the scheme alone does “not come anywhere close to addressing the scale of the problem”.
Tes revealed earlier this year that multi-academy trusts were being lined up to establish attendance hubs after education secretary Gillian Keegan urged sector leaders to get involved.
The rollout of the programme follows a pilot project run by Northern Education Trust, which involved around 60 schools working together to tackle absence.
The announcement comes as the latest attendance data is set to be released on Thursday morning. The previous attendance statistics estimated the attendance rate was 94 per cent on Tuesday 5 September.
It also follows Wednesday’s release of a major report into tackling the rise of persistent absence, authored by the cross-party Commons Education Select Committee.
Pupil absence rates rose over the past academic year post-pandemic despite the government’s attendance drive. Data in May found that almost a quarter of pupils were persistently absent during the autumn term of 2022.
Schools with good attendance lead the hubs, where they share ideas with other schools to help them boost their attendance. Hubs will start working with schools over the next two weeks.
The chief executive of Northern Education Trust, Rob Tarn, said: “Securing excellent attendance continues to be a day-to-day challenge for all schools around the country.
“I am delighted to see the launch of four additional attendance hubs supporting hundreds more schools around the country - building on the hub model that we created at North Shore Academy.
“Attendance hubs give school leaders more opportunities to learn from others, share best practice and engage in an ongoing professional dialogue about improving attendance.”
Hubs may share advice on things like building strong relationships with families, working with wider services, using data to identify pupils at risk and making the school welcoming.
Ms Keegan said: “We are doing everything in our power to ensure children don’t miss out on these precious years that only happen once in a lifetime.
“We are delighted to expand our groundbreaking attendance hubs and continue to work with the wider sector through the Attendance Action Alliance to further reduce absence.”
Julie McCulloch, director of policy at the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “We welcome the creation of these new attendance hubs but do not feel that this comes anywhere close to addressing the scale of the problem. The number of persistently absent pupils has doubled compared to before the pandemic.
“More action is needed to address the rising tide of mental health problems, the pressures on special educational needs support and the blight of child poverty. All these factors are linked to high levels of pupil absence and only concerted government action can resolve them.”
