Wednesday<\/a>, ministers announced every school would be issued with attendance baseline improvement expectation (ABIE) reports based on their circumstances, including location, pupil needs and deprivation.<\/p>\nThe documents contain attendance targets and the names of other high-performing schools in similar circumstances \u2013 both of which are generated using AI.<\/p>\n
But now the reports are no longer able to be viewed, following complaints the results were inaccurate.<\/p>\n
\u2018Temporarily suspended\u2019<\/p>\n
Headteachers and trust CEOs told Schools Week on Friday that they noticed discrepancies in the data provided.<\/p>\n
Nigel Attwood, a headteacher in Birmingham, said the attendance figures stated in his report were incorrect, adding: \u201cIt\u2019s embarrassing [for government]. We\u2019ve got all the information under the sun for attendance [already], why do we need something else?\u201d<\/p>\n
In a briefing to leaders on Friday, the Confederation of School Trusts said the new reports had \u201cbeen temporarily suspended\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that some leaders had cited apparent inaccuracies in the data, so it is possible the ABIE data has been taken down for that reason, although the DfE has not confirmed this.\u201d<\/p>\n
A trust boss also questioned the reliability of the reports\u2019 school comparisons, as one of their academies, located in an area with grammars, was being benchmarked against others in local authorities without selectives.<\/p>\n
A deputy head of a standalone academy in the north east also said they had four similar schools listed \u2013 which he said was based on similar metrics and geography.<\/p>\n
But all four schools were part of large academy trusts, with the nearest more than five hours away. One had schools in London.<\/p>\n
Targets \u2018not an accountability measure\u2019<\/p>\n
The government said last week the targets set in ABIE reports would be \u201cindicative\u201d this year. \u201cOfficial\u201d ones will be sent next September.<\/p>\n
They are \u201cnot an accountability measure and will not be used for intervention\u201d. However, schools \u201cmay receive an offer of additional support to improve\u201d if they fail to meet the expectations.<\/p>\n
It also urged leaders to contact the similar schools identified in their reports that have higher attendance figures.<\/p>\n
Officials suggested they ask \u201chow they set a positive attendance culture, track data, communicate the importance of attendance [and] work with families to identify and remove barriers to attendance\u201d.<\/p>\n
Reports \u2018currently down\u2019<\/p>\n
![\"Bridget](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Bridget-Phillipson-CST-1-feat.jpg\" "\\"BridgetPhillipsonCST1feat")
Bridget Phillipson<\/p>\n
But the DfE confirmed on Friday the \u201creports are currently down\u201d. It expects them to be available this week.<\/p>\n
However, it did not say what went wrong.<\/p>\n
When the government unveiled the reports<\/a>, education secretary Bridget Phillipson said: \u201cI want every school to play its part in getting attendance back to \u2013 and beyond \u2013 pre-pandemic levels.<\/p>\n\u201cBy working jointly with schools to set individual targets, we\u2019re tackling variation head-on. Our 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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leaders report inaccuracies in new attendance target scheme launched last week by government Leaders report inaccuracies in new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,36342,2211,110619,110620,50,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-267710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-attendance","tag-coronavirus","tag-dfe","tag-education-policy","tag-news","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267710","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=267710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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