Wiltshire schools plan to tackle persistently absent students

Preventing children missing out on education is one of the main priorities of the government School Bill

Schools are being offered meetings with education officers on how to deal with persistently absent students.

All schools in the Wiltshire area will have access to the sessions starting in this academic term.

It comes after a report from Wiltshire Council that showed the number of children not getting a full-time education is still high.

The plan was discussed by councillors in the Children's Select Committee on 22 September.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service was told that the report said the number of children with a reduced-education provision agreement - an agreement between the parent and school where the number of hours spent in education is reduced - is currently 286 while in the period covering 2020 to 2021 it was 194.

The report also said Wiltshire schools' academic standards are still behind the regional and national levels according to education watchdog, Ofsted.

The number of children home educated is also higher than it was in the 2020-2021 period according to the report, 766 compared to 731 in 2020-21,

Children missing out on education is one of the main priorities of the government's School Bill, announced in May.

As part of the bill, new legislation is being introduced to bring into force statutory guidance on attendance.

There will also be a requirement for creation of local authority administered registers for children not in school, reducing the risk of children becoming vulnerable to poor standards of education or risks to their safety and wellbeing.