Blackburn with Darwen students miss tenth of academic year

The information shows students who were absent for 10 per cent of the academic year - the equivalent of half a day every week - reached nearly one-quarter of the pupil population, as part of a national surge in ‘severe absences’.

This figure is twice as high as the pre-pandemic level, of 11.6 per cent, and the figure has continued to grow year on year since the Covid-19 lockdowns.

The number of students who were persistently absent from school was significantly higher than the county-wide figure, with schools controlled by Lancashire County Council - including the rest of East Lancashire - having 20.3. per cent of children missing more than 10 per cent of the year.

Blackburn with Darwen Councillor Julie Gunn, Executive Member for Children, Young People & Education, said: “Where children are missing education in our Borough we quickly re-engage with appropriate educational provision through school admission processes.

"Numbers of children missing education have grown both nationally and locally. Pupil safety is our main priority, and we recognise that children who are not receiving suitable education are potentially exposed to higher degrees of risk.

"We are responsible for working very closely with schools and other partners to raise awareness, to simplify referral processes, and to track and identify cases that are referred.

"We have well established procedures to identify and locate children who go missing from education through liaison with Local Authorities and agencies who are most likely to hold information on children and young people.”

More than £110,00 were raised in fines during this period in Blackburn with Darwen, with the majority of these being issued for unauthorised term-time holidays.

Money is used to administer the system including court costs and funding attendance support in the borough.

In September, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson described the number of children missing school as an “absence epidemic”.

Ahead of pupils’ return to the classroom for this school year, Ms Phillipson warned she will make no “apologies” for fining parents with frequently absent children.

However, in October Anne Longfield, the former children’s commissioner for England said that threatening parents with fines when their child misses school is not reducing absences.

New data uncovered by the Lancashire Telegraph revealed  parents in the borough saw invoices increase again to £169,260 in the last financial year (April 2023 to March 2024).

In the case of repeated fines, if a parent receives a second fine for the same child within any three-year period, this will be charged at the higher rate of £160. 

Fines per parent will be capped at two fines within any three-year period. Once this limit has been reached, other actions like a parenting order or prosecution will be considered. 

If you’re prosecuted and attend court because your child hasn’t been attending school, you could get a fine of up to £2,500. 

Money raised via fines is only used by the local authority to cover the costs of administering the system, and to fund attendance support. Any extra money is sent to the Government.

Beth Prescott, programme lead at the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), said: “Four years on from the pandemic and school closures, the crisis of kids missing school shows no sign of abating.

“Severe absence is up year on year, and it has now become endemic with parents often thinking it is not essential for children to attend school every day.”