Over 28% of primary pupils and 40% of FSM secondary pupils who qualified for free school meals were persistently absent during the 2021/22 autumn term. Lee Elliot Major and Andy Eyles write that while some of the contributing factors are known, the evidence on how to reduce persistent absenteeism is weak

Elliot Major, Lee

Eyles, Andrew

English

LSE Research Online

Rising school absences: the postpandemic education divideOver 28% of primary pupils and 40% of FSM secondarypupils who qualified for free school meals were persistently absent during the 2021/22autumn term. Lee Elliot Major and Andy Eyles write that while some of the contributingfactors are known, the evidence on how to reduce persistent absenteeism is weak. The COVID pandemic has highlighted the equalising power of schooling. We now knowthat COVID-induced school closures hindered learning for millions of pupils across theworld (Betthäuser et al, 2022). In the unlevel playing field outside the school gates,disadvantaged pupils were less likely to access study space, computers, andeducational materials (Elliot Major, Eyles, and Machin, 2021); as a result they fell furtherbehind their more privileged peers.Yet schooling can only equalise opportunities if children are present in the classroom.This is why official data we have analysed on persistent school absences in Englandduring the immediate aftermath of the pandemic are so worrying. We have broken thesefigures down by whether children qualified for Free School Meals (FSM) or not. Pupilsare identified as a persistent absentee if they miss 10% or more of their possible schoolsessions where a session is defined as half a day. This amounts to at least 7 days ofschooling in the Autumn term from which data are drawn. The results are presented inthe two graphs below for primary and secondary schools during the autumn term for thelast three academic years.The statistics are startling. Just over 28% of FSM primary pupils and 40% of FSMsecondary pupils were persistently absent during the 2021/22 autumn term. To put thesefigures into perspective, typically around 10% of primary pupils and 15% of secondaryPage 1 of 13Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 14/11/2022pupils were registered as persistently missing from the classroom during the pre-pandemic years. The attendance gap between FSM pupils and their peers is stark.Figure 1: Persistent absence in the autumn term (primary school)Page 2 of 13Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 14/11/2022Page 3 of 13Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 14/11/2022Page 4 of 13Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 14/11/2022Figure 2: Persistent absence in the autumn term (secondary school)Page 5 of 13Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 14/11/2022Page 6 of 13Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 14/11/2022Note: Underlying data are available here. Absences include all authorised andunauthorised absences and those isolating due to a positive COVID test. Absence doesPage 7 of 13Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 14/11/2022not include those pupils who were isolating but did not have a positive COVID test.Absence refers to missed sessions where a session is equal of half a day of schooling.Behind these proportional gaps are scarily big numbers. A total of 538,427 FSM pupilswere persistently absent in the autumn term of 2021/22. In total, 1,595, 582 pupils inEngland’s primary and secondary schools had missed a significant number of schooldays. This is out of total of just under 7 million pupils. As teachers will tell you, many ofthe extra million absentees who are not on free school meals are nonetheless facing realhardship outside the school gates. In the current cost of living crisis many more pupilshave come to be known as the ‘hidden’ poor.Estimating the costs of absenceTeachers know only too well the link between attendance and attainment in their ownclassrooms. Robust studies demonstrate this relationship at national and internationallevels. Using OECD PISA test data, for example, Lavy (2015) suggests that an extrahour of instruction per-week over the course of a school year increases educationalattainment by 0.06 standard deviations. A recent randomised trial finds a much largerincrease of 0.15 standard deviations (Andersen et al, 2016).These estimates allow for a back of the envelope calculation of the effect of persistentabsence on attainment. The most conservative assumption is that persistent absenteesmiss 10% of their sessions. This amounts to students missing 39 half day sessions overthe course of the year. The average pupil, pre-COVID, missed between 4% and 5.5% ofall sessions depending upon their stage of schooling. The difference in absenteeismbetween the persistently absent and a pupil who missed 5% of all sessions would thenbe expected to lower attainment by between 0.09 and 0.23 standard deviations. Using astandard approach to translate these figures into months of learning (Higgins, 2018) thisequates to two to three months of learning lost among persistently absent pupils.These calculations suggest that increased absence rates have the potential tosignificantly reduce attainment for absent pupils. Statistics for the first weeks of the2022/23 academic year reveal higher attendance rates than last year although still lowerthan pre-pandemic levels. Individual trusts however are reporting that half of their poorerpupils are still persistently absent. We won’t be able to confirm these rates nationallyuntil later this year.Page 8 of 13Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 14/11/2022There are many reasons why so many children have not returned to school following thedisruption of the pandemic. Some have experienced crippling anxiety and a loss of socialand academic confidence. Others have been struggling to pay for bus travel. Perhapsmost troubling of all, some families appear to have lost their belief that attending schoolregularly is necessary for their children. Some parents are openly questioning whetherthe return to schooling is needed, given that results were so good last year, when manypupils were absent due to COVID.Unfortunately, the evidence on how to reduce persistent absenteeism is extremely weak.The Education Endowment Foundation has suggested sending personalised letters andtext messages to parents. Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza has urgedteachers to intervene quickly during the first week to spot children at risk of fallingpersistently absent. A national army of education welfare officers are chasing missingpupils with phone calls and home visits. The most successful schools are putting hugeresources into home visits. Mentors are also being trained to support pupils. Financialpenalties for parents meanwhile are being levied at different rates across the country.The stakes for the pandemic generation could not be higher. Statistics released lastweek revealed widening socio-economic gaps in assessments among 7 year olds. Ouranalysis of recently released statistics for end of primary school tests taken in thesummer confirm that attainment has fallen across the board at age 11. There is alsoevidence of a growing socioeconomic divide. Below we show the trends for achievingnational benchmarks in maths. These are broken down by girls and boys and whetherchildren have at any time been eligible for free school meals. These figures are worryingas we know that falling behind in earlier years is strongly predictive of failing GCSEs atage 16 (Elliot Major and Parsons, 2022). Our Nuffield Foundation project will analysehow widening inequalities in education caused by the pandemic are likely to impact thelife prospects of under 18s. All this suggests that getting children back to school shouldbe a national education priority.Figure 3: Primary school maths attainment by gender and disadvantagePage 9 of 13Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 14/11/2022Page 10 of 13Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 14/11/2022Page 11 of 13Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 14/11/2022_____________________About the AuthorsPage 12 of 13Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 14/11/2022Lee Elliot Major is Professor of Social Mobility at the University ofExeter and an Associate of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London Schoolof Economics.  Andrew Eyles is a research economist in the Education and Skillsprogramme at the Centre for Economic Performance, LSE. He is also a PhD(Economics) student at University College London.  Photo by CDC on UnsplashPage 13 of 13Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 14/11/2022

Rising school absences: the post pandemic education divide

http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/117331/1/politicsandpolicy_2022_10_17_rising_school_absences_the_post_pandemic_education_divide.pdf

Rising school absences: the post pandemic education divide

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