Labour unveils plan to tackle ‘generation challenge’ of persistent absence in schools as 1435 pupils across Havering and Barking and Dagenham set to miss half their lessons by 2026.

‘In working class areas like Dagenham and Rainham every day of education matters for our children’s life chances’-Margaret Mullane

Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has unveiled a new long-term plan to tackle the “generational challenge” of persistent absence of children from school, after new data from the party exposed the scale of the problem in both Barking and Dagenham and Havering which make up the Dagenham and Rainham constituency. 

Analysis by the Party shows over 200,000 children are set to miss half their time at school, including 825 in Barking and Dagenham and 610 in Havering by 2026 if rates of children skipping school continue. Between 2016 and 2022, the number of children missing half their lessons trebled across England with an increase of 180% in Barking and Dagenham and 131% in Havering.

A child is deemed persistently absent if they miss 10 per cent of lessons or more, and severely absent if they miss 50 per cent of lessons or more. Over the course of a year missing ten per cent of lessons would equate to four weeks’ worth of schooling, while missing half is the equivalent of missing four months of school. 

Labour’s plan includes the creation of a new Register of Home-Schooled Pupils to keep track of those not in mainstream schooling as part of a new package of measures to get to grips with persistent non-attendance and restore flagging public trust in England’s schools. Other measures will include: 

• Empowering Ofsted to review absence as part of annual safeguarding spot-checks. 

• Using AI to spot trends in absence by joining up existing records for children to improve coordination between education, social care and the wider services that support families, while busting bureaucracy for parents. 

• Equipping every school with funding to deliver evidence-based early language interventions to ensure every child develops the strong foundation in speech and language development that sets them up to achieve. 

• Increasing mental health support through dedicated counsellors in every secondary school and putting mental health hubs in every community. 

• Reforming the curriculum to deliver a better foundation in reading, writing and maths, while ensuring that children do not miss out on music, sport, art and drama. 

• Providing universal free breakfast clubs for every primary school pupil in England to boost attendance across the country. 

Labour’s intervention after new research from the Centre for Social Justice revealed that more than one in four parents think that school isn’t essential every day. 

Margaret Mullane, Labour’s Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Dagenham and Rainham told the Havering Daily: “In working class areas like Dagenham and Rainham every day of education matters for our children’s life chances. Tackling chronic absence would give those who often have poor educational outcomes the best start in life. The Tories have no plan to get our children back to school but Labour’s long-term plan would tackle the underlying reasons children are not in class. After 14 years of Tory decline, Labour will put education at the heart of national life to give children in places like Dagenham and Rainham a bright future once again.”

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