The start of the new school year has brought with it new statutory duties around attendance for schools, multi-academy trusts and local authorities alike. One of these is that schools and local partners are now expected to ‘rigorously use attendance data to identify patterns of poor attendance’. A new report by Carers Trust out later this month shows why young carers are a vital part of this picture.
Despite an array of articles, roundtables and research reports released over the summer to help school leaders understand the many barriers to attendance, young carers are too often absent from the conversation.
Post-Covid research suggests that, on average, between 5 and 10 per cent of pupils will be young carers: children supporting someone because of a long-term illness, disability or addiction. In other words, there will be young carers in every class, in every school, trying to juggle caring with their education.
Schools have been asked to record which pupils are young carers on their January school census return since 2023. This meant that for the first time, the Department for Education were able to publish attendance data including young carers earlier this year.
As part of our upcoming report examining the experiences of young carers within education we have delved into this data. The findings, to be published in full and discussed on 26h September at our online Transforming Educational Opportunities For Young Carers conference, are stark.
The attendance rate for the 38,983 young carers recorded was 87.7 per cent. That’s around 23 days of school missed – more than a month’s worth of education. It compares to just 14 days for other pupils.
Of the 23,261 young carers at secondary school recorded, 46 per cent were persistently absent, compared with 26 per cent for non-young carers.
These findings are alarming, but they are just the tip of the iceberg
The variations continue when we look at different types of absence. For example, young carers have double the rate of unauthorised absence (4.8 per cent) as non-young carers (2.4 per cent).
Nor is it just about absence. Young carers had three times as many late sessions per pupil (1.5) as non-young carers (0.5).
While these findings are alarming enough, this data is just the tip of the iceberg. These are the young carers we know about. This attendance data is based on a census return where 79 per cent of schools recorded zero young carers.
While 2024 saw this figure improve to 72 per cent, young carers in almost three quarters of schools will not be among the next published set of national annual attendance.
Even then, the young carers’ attendance figures will still be based on a school year which finished eight months earlier. This is because despite these stark figures, young carers are not currently included in the DfE’s daily attendance reporting programme.
While this is something we will continue to push the government to change (and all help in this regard is most welcome), your school or trust can play your part right now in improving attendance for your young carers.
That work starts locally by identifying who young carers in schools are, routinely reviewing their attendance and progress and, most importantly, ensuring they can access support if they need it, both inside school and outside of it.
But while schools have a crucial role to play in improving educational outcomes for their young carers, they cannot be expected to tackle this problem alone.
Almost every young carer service and local authority (97 per cent) who responded to our survey agreed that improving recording of young carers in schools requires more action and support from the government.
We cannot settle for just identifying and recording young carers; schools need targeted funding to be able to properly support their wellbeing and education too.
In the meantime, in order to effectively tackle barriers to attendance and reduce persistent absence rates ahead of the January 2025 census, now is the time to ensure that identifying and supporting young carers is on this term’s to-do list.
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