Every school in England is to be issued with an AI-generated target for minimum pupil attendance, the government has announced, as part of its continuing efforts to tackle absence in the country\u2019s classrooms.<\/p>\n
Headteachers will be given the targets this month in an effort to boost attendance rates, which remain stubbornly below pre-pandemic levels.<\/p>\n
Teaching unions, however, instantly dismissed the initiative, saying it would put further pressure on already overloaded school leaders.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reality is that schools are already working tirelessly to improve attendance, with many going way above and beyond what should be expected of schools every single day,\u201d the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, Paul Whiteman, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government issuing them with yet more targets will not help them with that work and is the wrong way to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
The general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, Pepe Di\u2019Iasio, said: \u201cWe would urge the government to understand the realities in schools rather than issuing yet more diktats dreamt up in Whitehall.<\/p>\n
\u201cSchools already move heaven and earth to ensure that all their pupils attend regularly, but many of the factors that contribute to absence are beyond their direct control.<\/p>\n
\u201cSetting them individual targets doesn\u2019t resolve those issues, but it does pile yet more pressure on school leaders and staff who are already under great strain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Attendance rates overall have improved in England, but official government figures published last month showed that severe absence rates \u2013 where pupils miss more than 50% of school sessions \u2013 were on the rise again, and according to the Department for Education one in three schools have shown no improvement.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can only deliver opportunity for children in our country if they\u2019re in school, achieving and thriving,\u201d the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, said. \u201cThat\u2019s why I want every school to play its part in getting attendance back to and beyond pre-pandemic levels.\u201d<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The target a school is given will be based on attendance levels achieved by others in similar circumstances, including deprivation, location and pupils\u2019 needs. Targets will not be published and will not be accessible to the schools inspectorate, Ofsted.<\/p>\n Schools will be supported to reach their targets by linking them up with high\u2013performing schools serving similar communities and with similar needs, so headteachers can learn from best practice elsewhere.<\/p>\n \u201cOur best schools already have a brilliant approach to attendance, and now we\u2019re driving that focus everywhere so that all children are supported to attend school and learn,\u201d Phillipson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every school in England is to be issued with an AI-generated target for minimum pupil attendance, the government…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-257797","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}