Teachers have so little belief in the importance of pupils’ full school attendance that they would take their own children on term time holidays if they could, staff have told a three-year research programme.
Frontline staff do not believe the school system is set up to deal with an ongoing attendance crisis in England and Wales, where nearly one in five children are now missing at least ۱۰% of school, according to a report based on in-depth conversations with teachers.
Despite a hardline approach from schools to tackle the crisis, evidence from focus groups containing teachers from schools in low-income areas suggests many share the same scepticism as parents and pupils about the efficiency of holiday fines, according to the report by youth charity Impetus and policy and polling research firm Public First.
“If I wasn’t a teacher, I would take my daughter out of school and take her on holiday because it would be cheaper,” said one teacher.
Another noted: “If it’s the only holiday you get to experience in a five-year period, I think that’s probably worth more than a week in school in January.”
The report comes as the children’s commissioner warned of tens of thousands of hidden Neets (young people not in education, employment or training), with analysis suggesting that an estimated ۴۲,۰۰۰ ۱۶- and ۱۷-year-olds enrolled in colleges in England are attending less than half the time.
Rachel de Souza warned that the number of Neets is almost twice as large as official figures indicate, according to a new analysis of ۲۶۲ of England’s ۲۹۰ college groups, which are not included in Department for Education attendance figures.
“We have a blind spot: hidden Neets slipping through the cracks,” she said. “Young people with all the negative impacts of not being in employment, education or training, but with none of the targeted interventions.”
Researchers compiling the report, A Crisis of Disengagement, spoke to ۶۲ secondary school staff from schools where more than ۲۵% of pupils were eligible for free school meals.
They spoke of the work of chasing pupils’ attendance as “relentless” and expressed the view that an occasional holiday or minor absence was less worrying than sustained disengagement.
While some staff saw fines as a necessary tool, many believed they damage trust and undermine the relational work needed to support pupils and families to re-engage with school.
“We’ll send a penalty notice out and then we’ve really annoyed that parent,” said one senior leader. “We’ve just broken a relationship between a family that we want to get into school.”
A record ۴۹۲,۸۲۵ penalty notices for unauthorised absences were issued to parents in England in ۲۰۲۴-۲۵, a sharp rise from pre-Covid levels. Researchers have previously warned of a “seismic shift” in attitudes to attendance since the pandemic, with concern that some parents no longer believe children needed to be in school full-time. The absence rate for pupils in England in ۲۰۲۵-۲۶ was ۶.۹۳%, significantly above the ۲۰۱۸-۱۹ pre-Covid level of ۴.۷%
Teachers and senior leaders in schools also argued that gaps in mental health support for struggling students, unmet special educational needs and a paucity of social workers was making their jobs more difficult with schools seen as “the one-stop shop for everything”.
“We’ve got children who should have specialist provision, and they’re in our building every day,” said one senior leader. “We also need external agencies such as CAMHS [Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services] and social workers to have the right capacity and not turn us down.”
Staff also told researchers the most effective interventions were also the hardest – including building relationships, mentoring and home visits.
“I think it takes up a lot of adult hours,” she said. “If you looked proportionally at how time was broken down, attendance is very, very time consuming.”
Susannah Hardyman, CEO of Impetus, said teachers could not solve the attendance crisis alone.
“We now know that not only are pupils, families and teachers unconvinced that every day in school matters, but what we are facing is a wider crisis of disengagement driven by pressures often outside the control of school staff,” she said.
