Slower development and lower attendance in Kirklees schools post-Covid

Children's attainment has been down since the pandemic
-Credit: (Image: PA Wire/PA Images)


Across Kirllees schools are seeing lower attendance, worse behaviour and weaker development after the Covid-19 pandemic.

Since the pandemic, many children have struggled to meet standards set by previous generations of pupils in fields such as attendance, behaviour and their development.

According to figures from the Department for Education, the rate of pupils persistently missing school has increased significantly since the pandemic. During the 2019-2020 autumn term, before the pandemic, 13.1% of pupils across the country missed at least 10% of school sessions.

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This jumped to 19.5%, a near 50% rise. Meanwhile, the number of pupils missing at least half of their school sessions has more than doubled from 0.5% to 2%. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson called this an "epidemic".

In an article she wrote in the Sunday Times, the Education Secretary said she would make no "apologies" for fining parents with frequently absent children, and added too many parents allow children time off for holidays, birthdays or a "runny nose".

As for Kirklees, persistent absence rates have risen from 13% in 2019 to 17.8% last year. The proportion of pupils missing at least half of classes has also risen significantly, with 1.8% of children in Kirklees missing 50% or more of their school sessions last autumn.

James Bowen, assistant general secretary at school leaders' union NAHT, said attendance has declined significantly since the pandemic, fuelled by factors including rising anxiety and poor mental health, poverty, challenges at home, and under-resourced support for children with special educational needs.

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Mr Bowen said: "It’s vital children attend school whenever possible ­– pupils can easily miss crucial steps in their learning if they’re absent." Suspension rates have also risen nationally and in Kirklees. In Kirklees, 11 suspensions per 100 pupils were handed out in the 2022-23 academic year, up from 6.1 per 100 in 2018-19.

At the national level, suspension rates more than doubled, from 3.8 per 100 pupils in 2018-19 to 9.3 per 100 last year. According to the Institute for Public Policy Research think tank and education charity The Difference, suspensions and exclusions rose by more than 20% in the 2023-2024 Easter Term when compared with the same period the year before.

Kiran Gill, IPPR associate fellow and chief executive of The Difference, said: "The past four years, post-pandemic, have seen an alarming rise in children losing learning. We should all be worried about the social injustice that the most marginalised children – who already have the biggest barriers to opportunity outside of school – are those most likely to be not in classrooms through absence, suspension and exclusion."

The Department for Education said the rising number of school suspensions is "shocking". A spokesperson said: "We are determined to get to grips with the causes of poor behaviour; we’ve already committed to providing access to specialist mental health professionals in every school, introducing free breakfast clubs in every primary school, and ensuring earlier intervention in mainstream schools for pupils with special needs.

"But we know poor behaviour can also be rooted in wider issues, which is why the Government is developing an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty led by a taskforce co-chaired by the Education Secretary so that we can break down the barriers to opportunity."

Speech, reading and writing skills have also been harmed by the pandemic. For children in Year Two, 89% of them in Kirklees met the expected standard in their phonics assessment, down from 91% in 2018-2019. This matched the national picture, and in Key Stage Two, just 60% of pupils reached the expected standard in reading, writing and maths in 2022-23, down from 65% in 2018-19. In Kirklees, this fell from 62% to 58%.

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT, said: "The Government clearly hasn’t done nearly enough to support children’s recovery from the pandemic, and it is depressing that this has further harmed those children who need help the most."

A DfE spokesperson said: "We want to make sure that children from all over the country, regardless of background, have the same opportunities to succeed and attain the highest levels.

"We have made almost £5 billion available since 2020 for education recovery initiatives, including high quality tutoring for the children who need the most support.

"We are also supporting disadvantaged pupils through the pupil premium, which is rising to almost £2.9 billion in 2024-25, the highest in cash terms since this funding began."