This Estyn report focuses on attendance in secondary schools since the removal of the restrictions in place as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Across Wales, attendance in secondary schools has declined since the return to school and has been slow to improve. The attendance of those pupils who are eligible for free school meals is notably lower than that of those pupils who are not eligible for free school meals. Attendance rates across Wales remain a concern and the rates of persistent absenteeism have increased substantially.
School leaders reported a substantial increase in the number of pupils not attending school due to mental health and anxiety challenges. As a result, schools have increased their support for pupils’ emotional well-being through targeted intervention and universal provision.
Findings indicate that, where leaders were most effective in bringing about improvements in attendance, they had a relentless focus on improvement, evaluated the impact of their work effectively, used data rigorously and secured a strong culture of high expectations regarding pupils’ attendance. In addition, leaders in these schools had a strong focus on high quality teaching and on creating a stimulating curriculum that provided engaging learning experiences to help encourage pupils to continue to attend. Where these processes were less effective, leaders did not create a culture of high expectations for attendance, were not proactive enough in responding to early signs of poor attendance, and did not use data regularly or rigorously enough to evaluate the impact of their work.
The report identified a number of important barriers that schools faced when tackling poor attendance. These included parental perceptions of the importance of good attendance, increasing costs associated with school transport, the lack of dedicated funding from the Welsh Government to improve attendance, including the short term nature of it, and the variation in the impact of support that schools received. This makes it difficult for schools to target resources, create capacity to support pupils and their families or to plan strategically to improve attendance.