The education secretary has said “we all need to do more” to improve attendance and behaviour in schools.
Bridget Phillipson said the government had already made progress with five million more days in school this year, “but we all need to do more, and when it comes to getting kids in and behaving – this includes mums, dads and carers too”.
This comes as the government rolls out measures to support schools with attendance and behaviour as part of its Plan for Change.
The Department for Education (DfE) said on Sunday that an initial wave of 21 schools will serve as hubs, which will share strategies from heads who have successfully taken action on attendance and behaviour.
Around 800 schools attended by around 600,000 pupils will have access to support from these hubs, and the DfE said the programme is expected to support 5,000 schools, including intensive support for 500.
Ms Phillipson said there was a particular concern about white working-class children, who have among the highest overall absence rates.
She wrote in The Sunday Telegraph that “for far too many white working-class children, opportunity is out of reach”, with statistics showing that “one in 10 white children on free school meals were suspended last year, with suspension rates five times higher than their peers”.
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“These children are swimming upstream against a staggering, entrenched class divide that sees them disproportionately kicked out of education or not attending in the first place,” the education secretary said.
Ms Phillipson insisted that “it is only this government that has the courage to upend a system that has resolutely failed white working-class children”.
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The DfE is expected to set out more plans to tackle behaviour in a white paper due to be published in the autumn.
The latest figures by the department show that while the overall absence rate was lower in autumn 202/25 than it was the previous year, the number of severely absent students – missing 50% or more – increased from 142,000 in autumn 2023/24 to 148,000 in autumn 2024/25.
The DfE said data shows seven out of every 30 classroom minutes are lost to disruption.
A survey by the NASUWT teaching union earlier this year found 81% of its members felt the number of pupils exhibiting violent and abusive behaviour at school had increased.
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Suspensions and exclusions rose to a record high in 2023/24, government figures released in July revealed.
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson will be on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky News from 8.30am on Sunday
Ms Phillipson’s call for parents to join an effort to improve attendance and behaviour has been welcomed by the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), whose general secretary, Pepe Di’Iasio, said: “It is only through working collectively – families and school together – that we will get to grips with these issues.”
But Mr Di’Iasio said that the ASCL would like to see “much more action from the government” to support schools and colleges.
