Sniffle pupils ‘should be at school’

Charlie Taylor also called for a clampdown on term time holidays warning that children who regularly have time off can end up missing a year of schooling by the time they reach 16.

Absence rates for pupils in the reception year (ages four and five) are also set to be published in an attempt to get primary schools to pick up patterns of poor attendance early on. Mr Taylor, who is head of The Willows, a special school in west London for children with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties, said schools must do more to teach parents about the importance of good attendance and to pick up those who are falling into “bad habits”.

Time missed in nursery or primary school was as important as time missed in secondary schools, he said.

Speaking as he published his review into attendance in schools, ordered by Ministers in the wake of the riots last summer, Mr Taylor suggested that parents could be “trigger happy” in keeping children off sick.

At one West Bromwich school, he said, parents are taught “what represented a sniffle, and what represented something that was genuinely serious enough to keep a child off from school for.”

“Some parents think they’re being a good parent by keeping their child off school, but actually sometimes they can be a bit trigger happy, particularly with young parents and young children,” Mr Taylor said.

He added that there was a tendency to “be more precious” with younger, or first children.

“I think it’s just an education job, it’s helping parents to understand what’s the difference between a bit of a sniffle and ‘don’t worry we’ll look after him and if there’s a real problem we’ll give you a ring’ and something that’s really serious and the kid needs to be at home.”

In his review Mr Taylor also recommends a crackdown on term time holidays, saying there is often an “automatic assumption” that pupils can have two weeks off a year.

“Actually if you add the two weeks holiday a year and you factor in the average eight to 10 days that children have off for sickness and medical appointments, you’re then looking, by the time a child leaves school, at the age of 16, having effectively missed a year of their education.”

He said he was not calling for a ban on term time holidays, because there are “exceptional circumstances” when a pupil may need to be taken out of school.

Prime Minister David Cameron, speaking in Alfreton, Derbyshire at the launch of the Conservative campaign for local council elections, said: “It is not enough to create good schools if a hard core of truants fail to turn up to study in them. Almost 400,000 pupils skip at least 15 per cent of lessons a year – equal to missing a month at school. Most never make up the lost ground. We’ve got to crack this problem. That’s why we asked Charlie Taylor, an experienced former headteacher in tough inner-city schools, to help. Today he’s publishing – and we are welcoming – his excellent report.

“He asks an important question: if parents can’t get their child into school, why should they be able to claim child benefit?

“Because I’m not prepared to see truancy and ill-discipline wreck the lives of the next generation.”

Mr Taylor has called for larger fines for parents who do not ensure their children attend school, with money taken from their child benefit if they fail to pay.

This recommendation has not been accepted by Ministers who plan to looked at it in further detail.

Comment: Page 12; School reports: Page 13.