Separating the truants from the cheap holiday seekers

The schools minister Nick Gibb greeted the latest truancy figures by blaming Labour for failing to get to grips with the problem. And it is true that despite giving schools and local authorities much tougher powers to tackle what is called 'unauthorised absence' the absentee numbers seem relentlessly to be on the rise.

But this is too simplistic a picture. One measure that had a remarkable effect was targeted action on schools with the highest levels of truancy, where such concentrated effort reduced the numbers of days lost to absence in the schools concerned, though it didn't dent the overall figures. This week's statistics (pdf) show that these measures, introduced by Tony Blair in 2006, saw the number of persistent truants (those missing 14 or more days a year) have fallen from 336,935 in 2006 to 260,740 in 2010 with the harder core (those missing 32 or more days a year) falling from 48,080 to 26,750. That is the single most impactful measure on truancy in decades.

But that success story has been obscured by an important change that was made during Labour's time in office to the focus of the data. Instead of simply focusing on unauthorised absence schools were urged to clamp down on term-time holidays, and to reduce overall absence figures, including authorised absence. The result was to drive many cheap term-time holidaymakers into the truants' corner. Indeed a look at the actual statistics (pdf) here confirms this, as the increase is unauthorised absence broadly mirrors the fall in authorised absence. A fifth of all unauthorised absence is due to family holidays. And there has been a fall in secondary school absence with a rise in primaries. I personally was against this change, because I believed the focus should be on persistent truants. But it has driven the data since.

However, the coalition does not appear to be continuing the work on tackling persistent truancy that had this big impact, as it is sceptical of such targeted work. Instead it imagines that the measures in its Education Bill combined with Ofsted inspections will do the trick. Among heads, only the permission for same day detentions is given a thumbs up - the rest is seen as window dressing (as, to be fair, were many similar Labour measures). But there is nothing here that will make the slightest difference either to the number of hard core truants or to the holiday plans of families in search of off peak bargains.

Next time, the coalition will have to start taking the blame if absentee data don't fall significantly. And when the time comes, we need to take a close look at the persistent absentee data. Those are the ones that are likely to become tomorrow's NEETS.

Boycotts, testing, targets and cuts

The publication of today's national primary school test results - the last taken under the Labour government - show both the limitations of the NUT/NAHT test boycott and the importance of externally validated national testing. The improvements since 1995 when the tests began have been remarkable, and this year's Maths results are the best ever. When we took the decision to make Key Stage 4 the expected rather than the average standard (ahead of the 1997 election) we faced a lot of criticism then from those same unions that felt a boycott somehow benefited students this year: they said we were being too ambitious. But using targets, particularly floor targets, combined with the literacy and numeracy hours in the late 90s allowed a big change in results. The fact that this is now a standard that can be achieved by 4 in 5 eleven year-olds vindicates that ambition. Over 100,000 more pupils each year make the grade. The schools minister Nick Gibb is right to argue that even more should reach this standard.

But he and his colleagues must be careful in what they are cutting. If Gibb wishes to strengthen the quality of teaching in primary English and Maths, he needs to find ways to incentivise schools to do so. Simply providing a cash premium on its own for poorer pupils without such incentivisation will make little difference, especially if it removes money from programmes directed at the 3Rs and improved in-service professional development. The majority of pupils and teachers defied the unions, enabling today's results to be published. But it is important that the coalition balances its welcome commitments to strong accountability and a pupil premium with the sort of floor targets and agreed ambitions that have also played such an important part in the improvements of recent years.

Will the Tories let schools decide on setting?

The Daily Mail angrily reports another supposed betrayal in education. Only 45% of lessons are apparently set by subject ability in secondary schools, so a Labour pledge to encourage - not enforce or require - the practice has "not worked". Cue charges of betrayal.

Yet, if Nick Gibb, the shadow schools spokesman is to be believed, this is an increase from 37% in 1997. (For some reason, Gibb uses 2002 as a baseline for his Mail onslaught, not 1997). But a more accurate figure suggests it was only 34%, given that 1996-1997 should be the baseline. And given that the practice was on the wane before 1997, Gibb's earlier figures suggest that a fifth more lessons are being set; the actual figures imply a quarter more.

More importantly, a far greater proportion of maths and English lessons are set. Most schools don't take an ideological position on setting; they do so pragmatically in some subjects, and not in others. The 45% figure includes all subjects, and teachers are often reluctant to set when take-up of subjects is relatively small or in subjects like religious education. There are also big differences in year groups.

But all this poses a bigger question for Nick Gibb. Given that the Conservatives would not force setting on schools to which they are supposedly granting greater independence than Labour, how exactly would they insist on setting in every lesson in every subject?

New readers start here...

A warm welcome to any Labour MPs who may have taken up the shadow schools minister, Nick Gibb's invitation in the House of Commons last night to visit my blog:

Conor Ryan, a former Labour education special adviser, points out in his excellent blog, which I recommend to Labour Members, that CTCs beat many fee-paying independent schools in their GCSE results.

May I particularly recommend some recent posts - similar ones may in future be known as Gibbs. New readers might like to start here, here and here.