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‘Cultural shift’ since pandemic causing attendance crisis in English schools
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Michael Ejercito
Jan 14, 2023, 9:19:15 PM1/14/23
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https://amp.theguardian.com/education/2023/jan/13/cultural-shift-since-pandemic-causing-attendance-crisis-in-english-schools
‘Cultural shift’ since pandemic causing attendance crisis in English schools
Teachers say parents are now more reluctant to send children to school
or willing to let them stay home
Richard Adams Education editor
Fri 13 Jan 2023 12.30 EST
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare via Email
Headteachers and school leaders are becoming increasingly worried that a
“cultural shift” in attitudes is causing a crisis in attendance, with
more pupils absent than before the Covid pandemic.
Teachers say parents are now more reluctant to send children to school
and more resistant to efforts to encourage attendance, with school
leaders in England warning it may take years to repair national
attendance figures.
Specialists who spoke to the Guardian said fears around illness had been
heightened since the pandemic, and are being driven by worsening support
for mental health as well as the strain experienced by the NHS and the
cost of living crisis.
Their fears are supported by figures from the Department for Education
(DfE) showing a sustained increase in authorised and unauthorised
absences in state schools across England.
Younger children most affected by Covid lockdowns, new research finds
Secondary schools appear worst affected, with pupils missing more than
9% of classroom time in the first term of the latest academic year,
compared with an average of about 5.4% in the five years between 2014
and 2019.
While illnesses accounted for a steep rise in children staying away
during December, when many parents were concerned about strep A and
scarlet fever outbreaks, the rate of unauthorised absences reported also
rose by 70%.
Sheila Mouna, the headteacher at St Anne’s and Guardian Angels Catholic
primary school in east London, said while parents had become more
anxious about their children going to school, others were more willing
to let them stay home since the pandemic.
“I think there’s been a cultural shift with people working at home, and
some people – not all – seem to think their kids did OK at home, so
things like that have become ingrained in some parents’ mind.
“But children need to be out and about, to be with their friends and
learn to socialise. It’s not just academic,” Mouna said.
Stuart Lock, the chief executive of the Advantage Schools academy trust
in Bedfordshire, said pupil attendance was a matter of concern for all
school leaders.
“I thought it was a blip. I now think that this is an established crisis
that is going to get worse and take years to solve,” Lock said.
“I don’t know how we’ll fix this – it feels like there has been a shift,
and it isn’t dissimilar to the early 2000s when it was very hard to get
a significant number of pupils to attend school regularly.”
Lock said the DfE was aware of the national problem and was looking at
policies to improve attendance, but added: “I think this is going to be
a big challenge for all of us this year.”
Stephen Aravena, the attendance and welfare adviser at St Anne’s, said
there were pupils who normally have “very good” attendance who were now
spending days out of school, with the mental health and resilience of
parents as well as children under strain.
“The landscape has changed. Pressures like the cost of living, all these
things are impacting on families, so that’s brought a whole range of new
problems that we need to deal with. We need to find new ways of
responding to that,” Aravena said.
MPs on parliament’s education select committee are to hold an inquiry
next month into the growing rates of persistent absence, questioning
education leaders on possible causes including economic disadvantage as
well as Covid.
Robin Walker, the Conservative MP who chairs the education committee,
said: “Missing school can seriously undermine a child’s education and
future life chances. It is imperative that we take a nuanced and
sympathetic look at the reasons why absence has become a growing problem.”
Stephen Morgan, the shadow schools minister, said the absence rates
“should set alarm bells ringing”.
“The failures of the government’s Covid recovery scheme, plummeting
pupil wellbeing and the growing epidemic of mental ill health in our
schools is driving non-attendance, which will lead to lower attainment
and lower life chances for children and young people,” he said.
--
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‘Cultural shift’ since pandemic causing attendance crisis in English schools
Teachers say parents are now more reluctant to send children to school
or willing to let them stay home
Richard Adams Education editor
Fri 13 Jan 2023 12.30 EST
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare via Email
Headteachers and school leaders are becoming increasingly worried that a
“cultural shift” in attitudes is causing a crisis in attendance, with
more pupils absent than before the Covid pandemic.
Teachers say parents are now more reluctant to send children to school
and more resistant to efforts to encourage attendance, with school
leaders in England warning it may take years to repair national
attendance figures.
Specialists who spoke to the Guardian said fears around illness had been
heightened since the pandemic, and are being driven by worsening support
for mental health as well as the strain experienced by the NHS and the
cost of living crisis.
Their fears are supported by figures from the Department for Education
(DfE) showing a sustained increase in authorised and unauthorised
absences in state schools across England.
Younger children most affected by Covid lockdowns, new research finds
Secondary schools appear worst affected, with pupils missing more than
9% of classroom time in the first term of the latest academic year,
compared with an average of about 5.4% in the five years between 2014
and 2019.
While illnesses accounted for a steep rise in children staying away
during December, when many parents were concerned about strep A and
scarlet fever outbreaks, the rate of unauthorised absences reported also
rose by 70%.
Sheila Mouna, the headteacher at St Anne’s and Guardian Angels Catholic
primary school in east London, said while parents had become more
anxious about their children going to school, others were more willing
to let them stay home since the pandemic.
“I think there’s been a cultural shift with people working at home, and
some people – not all – seem to think their kids did OK at home, so
things like that have become ingrained in some parents’ mind.
“But children need to be out and about, to be with their friends and
learn to socialise. It’s not just academic,” Mouna said.
Stuart Lock, the chief executive of the Advantage Schools academy trust
in Bedfordshire, said pupil attendance was a matter of concern for all
school leaders.
“I thought it was a blip. I now think that this is an established crisis
that is going to get worse and take years to solve,” Lock said.
“I don’t know how we’ll fix this – it feels like there has been a shift,
and it isn’t dissimilar to the early 2000s when it was very hard to get
a significant number of pupils to attend school regularly.”
Lock said the DfE was aware of the national problem and was looking at
policies to improve attendance, but added: “I think this is going to be
a big challenge for all of us this year.”
Stephen Aravena, the attendance and welfare adviser at St Anne’s, said
there were pupils who normally have “very good” attendance who were now
spending days out of school, with the mental health and resilience of
parents as well as children under strain.
“The landscape has changed. Pressures like the cost of living, all these
things are impacting on families, so that’s brought a whole range of new
problems that we need to deal with. We need to find new ways of
responding to that,” Aravena said.
MPs on parliament’s education select committee are to hold an inquiry
next month into the growing rates of persistent absence, questioning
education leaders on possible causes including economic disadvantage as
well as Covid.
Robin Walker, the Conservative MP who chairs the education committee,
said: “Missing school can seriously undermine a child’s education and
future life chances. It is imperative that we take a nuanced and
sympathetic look at the reasons why absence has become a growing problem.”
Stephen Morgan, the shadow schools minister, said the absence rates
“should set alarm bells ringing”.
“The failures of the government’s Covid recovery scheme, plummeting
pupil wellbeing and the growing epidemic of mental ill health in our
schools is driving non-attendance, which will lead to lower attainment
and lower life chances for children and young people,” he said.
--
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www.avg.com
HeartDoc Andrew
Jan 14, 2023, 9:52:13 PM1/14/23
to
the UK & elsewhere is by rapidly ( http://bit.ly/RapidTestCOVID-19
) finding out at any given moment, including even while on-line, who
among us are unwittingly contagious (i.e pre-symptomatic or
asymptomatic) in order to http://tinyurl.com/ConvinceItForward (John
15:12) for them to call their doctor and self-quarantine per their
doctor in hopes of stopping this pandemic. Thus, we're hoping for the
best while preparing for the worse-case scenario of the Alpha lineage
mutations and others like the Omicron, Gamma, Beta, Epsilon, Iota,
Lambda, Mu & Delta lineage mutations combining via
slip-RNA-replication to form hybrids like
http://tinyurl.com/Deltamicron that may render current COVID
vaccines/monoclonals/medicines/pills no longer effective.
Indeed, I am wonderfully hungry ( http://tinyurl.com/RapidOmicronTest
) and hope you, Michael, also have a healthy appetite too.
So how are you ?
...because we mindfully choose to openly care with our heart,
HeartDoc Andrew <><
--
Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD
Cardiologist with an http://bit.ly/EternalMedicalLicense
2024 & upwards non-partisan candidate for U.S. President:
http://WonderfullyHungry.org
and author of the 2PD-OMER Approach:
http://bit.ly/HeartDocAndrewCare
which is the only **healthy** cure for the U.S. healthcare crisis
Michael Ejercito
Jan 14, 2023, 10:01:56 PM1/14/23
to
Michael
HeartDoc Andrew
Jan 14, 2023, 10:09:15 PM1/14/23
to
Michael Ejercito wrote:
While wonderfully hungry in the Holy Spirit, Who causes (Deuteronomy
8:3) us to hunger, I note that you, Michael, are rapture ready (Luke
17:37 means no COVID just as eagles circling over their food have no
COVID) and pray (2 Chronicles 7:14) that our Everlasting (Isaiah 9:6)
Father in Heaven continues to give us "much more" (Luke 11:13) Holy
Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) so that we'd have much more of His Help to
always say/write that we're "wonderfully hungry" in **all** ways
including especially caring to http://tinyurl.com/ConvinceItForward
(John 15:12 as shown by http://tinyurl.com/RapidOmicronTest ) with all
glory ( http://bit.ly/Psalm112_1 ) to GOD (aka HaShem, Elohim, Abba,
DEO), in the name (John 16:23) of LORD Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Amen.
Laus DEO !
Suggested further reading:
https://groups.google.com/g/sci.med.cardiology/c/5EWtT4CwCOg/m/QjNF57xRBAAJ
Shorter link:
http://bit.ly/StatCOVID-19Test
Be hungrier, which really is wonderfully healthier especially for
diabetics and other heart disease patients:
http://bit.ly/HeartDocAndrew touts hunger (Luke 6:21a) with all glory
( http://bit.ly/Psalm112_1 ) to GOD, Who causes us to hunger
(Deuteronomy 8:3) when He blesses us right now (Luke 6:21a) thereby
removing the http://tinyurl.com/HeartVAT from around the heart
8:3) us to hunger, I note that you, Michael, are rapture ready (Luke
17:37 means no COVID just as eagles circling over their food have no
COVID) and pray (2 Chronicles 7:14) that our Everlasting (Isaiah 9:6)
Father in Heaven continues to give us "much more" (Luke 11:13) Holy
Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) so that we'd have much more of His Help to
always say/write that we're "wonderfully hungry" in **all** ways
including especially caring to http://tinyurl.com/ConvinceItForward
(John 15:12 as shown by http://tinyurl.com/RapidOmicronTest ) with all
glory ( http://bit.ly/Psalm112_1 ) to GOD (aka HaShem, Elohim, Abba,
DEO), in the name (John 16:23) of LORD Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Amen.
Laus DEO !
Suggested further reading:
https://groups.google.com/g/sci.med.cardiology/c/5EWtT4CwCOg/m/QjNF57xRBAAJ
Shorter link:
http://bit.ly/StatCOVID-19Test
Be hungrier, which really is wonderfully healthier especially for
diabetics and other heart disease patients:
http://bit.ly/HeartDocAndrew touts hunger (Luke 6:21a) with all glory
( http://bit.ly/Psalm112_1 ) to GOD, Who causes us to hunger
(Deuteronomy 8:3) when He blesses us right now (Luke 6:21a) thereby
removing the http://tinyurl.com/HeartVAT from around the heart
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