Hartlepool Borough Council schools chiefs working with Department for Education to tackle pupil absence concerns

Hartlepool Borough Council officers noted they have a “number of actions” available to them for the offence of irregular school attendance, with legal sanctions considered “only as a last resort”.

In the academic year 2022-23, the council’s attendance team issued 187 penalty notices and prosecuted on 96 occasions over absences from schools.

Meanwhile in 2021-22, 118 penalty notices were issued with 109 prosecutions.

Officers stressed the council and schools are working closely with a Department for Education (DfE) attendance adviser looking at the barriers preventing pupils from attending school and what actions can be taken.

The figures were provided in a report which went before the latest meeting of the council’s children’s services committee.

Statistics for secondary schools and academies showed the attendance rate for pupils in Hartlepool was 89.3% for 2022-23, below the national average of 91.0% and down on the 90.1% recorded in the town in 2021-22.

The level of “persistent absence” across the local authority for secondary schools also rose to 31.7%, which equates to 1,942 pupils, compared to 29.6% last year.

The DfE defines “persistently absent” as having an attendance rate of 90% or less, with the national average for 2022/23 being 27.7%.

Figures show a more positive picture for primary schools in the town, with the attendance rate being 93.9%, up from the 2021/22 figure of 93.6% and above the national average of 93.7%.

Meanwhile the “persistent absence” rate in primary schools for 2022-23 was 17.2%, equating to 1,143 pupils, which was below both the national average of 17.7% and the 2021-22 figure in Hartlepool of 19.2%.

Jackie Webb, council inclusion coordinator, said main reasons for absence were illness, unauthorised holidays in term time, unauthorised absences and suspensions/exclusions.

The meeting heard many local authorities are seeing a “societal change” in parental attitudes toward school attendance following the Covid-19 pandemic, which has been attributed to a change in working patterns of parents and carers.

A Hartlepool mother was recently handed a £926 court bill covering a fine, victim surcharge and prosecution costs after she was convicted at Teesside Magistrates’ Court of failing to regularly send her daughter to primary school.