Like most things, schools have never really recovered from the pandemic. Whether it’s student attainment, teachers leaving the profession or the attention span and behaviour of pupils, school life for many is harder than it has ever been. But absence is one area of particular and growing concern, as schools up and down the country attempt to reach the so-called ghost children: the thousands who never returned to the classroom after lockdown.
The worries about student absence that we teachers share with each other were confirmed this week by an alarming new report. It reveals that on an average day this year, one in 10 GCSE pupils in England have been absent from school – a rise of 70% since before the pandemic. According to the investigation, one in 20 year 11 students have missed at least half of their classes this year and around one in 100 are only attending school on an authorised part-time basis.
