Islington’s school absence rate one of the worst in London, council says

Islington Town Hall. Photograph: Islington Citizen

Absences continue to blight Islington schools as data reveals ‘vulnerable’ groups have poorer attendance rates than their peers.

The borough is neck and neck with Camden for the highest level of persistent absence among inner London authorities, with four schools above the national average.

Persistent absence is when a school pupil misses more than 10 per cent of their possible school sessions, and applies to cases of both authorised and unauthorised absences.

Islington schools also had the most ‘severe’ cases, where pupils miss more than half their lessons.

For two schools, pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) had an attendance rate below 80 per cent.

The Children and Young People scrutiny committee heard on 10 September that persistent absence was influenced by factors like anxiety, bullying, SEND and other.

But Cllr Ilkay Cinko-Oner suggested parents being oblivious to truancy should also be considered a factor.

“Half the time, parents don’t even know,” she said. “They send their kids off thinking they’re going to school.

“Some schools don’t even bother to ring parents to tell them, and then are faced with fines.

“How do we monitor this?”

Across all schools, 60 per cent of recorded absences were unauthorised.

The committee has defined 34 new ‘codes’ provided by the Department for Education (DfE) to help schools better understand why children are missing lessons.

The council has also updated its policies on enforcing attendance, including penalty notices for parents.

Under new rules, if a child is off school three or more times over three years, the Town Hall could take parents to court.

Cllr Jon Abbey acknowledged the unpopularity of fines but argued that the council’s approach is “pragmatic, fair and balanced”.

“In some cases it is draconian, but there are cases where evidence suggests they do need to be fined,” he said.

Cllr Michelline Safi Ngongo stressed that more work needed to be done to fix the problem, but said the “good news” is that new the codes from the DfE will give the council a better idea of the main cause of persistent absence.

“Some young people feel that school is not for them, that it is not welcoming them,” she said.

“To change the system, we need everybody round the table, including parents. Their voice matters, and the voice of young people matters.”