Help get children back in school, says Ofsted boss

School closures due to Covid-19 have had a long-term impact

Parents are being urged to "support their children to attend and behave at school" by the director of Ofsted in south-east England.

Matthew Purves said since the pandemic there had been a "troubling shift in attitudes around children's education".

He about a quarter of pupils were missing half a day of school each week.

"Recent research tells us if you miss that much school, you're half as likely as your peers to get five good GCSE's when you reach 16," the boss of the school's watchdog in the South East said.

According to data from the Department for Education, the local authority with the highest average rate of absence for each pupil in the South East - and one of the highest in England - is East Sussex, at 5.3%.

Kent is 5.2%, Medway and Brighton and Hove are both at 5.1%, West Sussex is 4.6% and Surrey 4.5%.

Mr Purves said in a class of about 30 children, two or three children were "missing class every day".

Mr Purves said before the pandemic there was an "unwritten belief" that families would make every effort to get their children to school

Despite the fact the region's schools were "doing a great job" with 9 out of ten rated as good or outstanding, absence rates had increased significantly since the pandemic, Mr Purves said.

"We know that the children who are most affected by absence are children with special educational needs and the most disadvantaged children," he added.

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