The number of children absent from mainstream education in Lincolnshire has been highlighted in a recent report.
Almost 2,000 children were logged as CME (children missing education) in 2022/23, a rise of six percent on the previous year.
The report to county councillors also shows a total of 3,576 fixed penalty notices for non-attendance were handed out last year. Another rise in numbers from 3,059 in 2018/19.
The council can also prosecute for non-payment of fines, which makes up almost 90 per cent of its workload.
“A high percentage of families seem resigned to the fact that they will be issued with a FPN for a term time holiday and the reduced cost of the family holiday makes this a viable option,” says the report to Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee.
The news comes in the same week that almost one in three parents believe the pandemic showed children don’t need to be in school every day.
According to the YouGov poll for the Centre for Social Justices, 28 per cent of parents felt children did not need to physically attend every day.
Ofsted, the school inspection department, had revealed that in the autumn of 2022 almost a quarter of pupils had been ‘persistently absent.’
The government has announced this week that additional ‘hubs’ will be created around the country in a bid to cut down on absences.
As a result of a drive to reduce figures, Lincolnshire produced its own strategy last spring.
Nationally, non-attendance figures have remained high since the pandemic and Lincolnshire is no different.
“Lincolnshire has seen many children return to school following the pandemic, however, as expected, there continues to be a gap between pre-covid and post covid attendance,” says the annual report.
Children with an attendance average of 89 per cent are classed as persistent.
“Whilst most children attend school regularly, or are being provided a suitable education elsewhere, there are some who, for many reasons, are not receiving a full-time education,” says a report going before the committee on Friday.
“Children who are persistently absent and not accessing full-time education are at increased risk of being victims of harm, exploitation, radicalisation,” the report says.
“Covid 19 has disrupted any progress made on pupil achievements since 2015 and so the correlation between attendance and achievement continues at the same, if not higher, rate.”
The statistics show that absences due to illness has increased post pandemic.
“Part of this is due to lower immunity of children, but there is also a tendency for parents and school to keep children away from school for longer periods of time,” the report says.
There are also rising numbers with a ‘fear of school’ also accentuated by the pandemic.
Included in the figures are statistics showing the rising numbers of children who are Electively Home Educated (EHE), and they should be registered with the local authority.
“At the end of the academic year there were 1,878 EHE children known to the local authority. This is a 17 per cent increase in overall numbers,” the report says.
Local authorities are legally required to be told by schools when a parent removes a child for home education.
“For most families, EHE is a lifestyle choice, with families opting to home educate for a variety of reasons,” says the report.
It adds that some of continued rise of CME numbers could be attributed to an improvement in reporting by schools.
“There are many reasons leading a child to become CME, for example, 4.8 per cent of children were previously home educated, where parents had failed to provide information to the authority.”
