WFH parents partly to blame for school attendance levels, Ofsted head says

Yahoo

16-02-2025

Parents who work from home are partly to blame for falling school attendance levels, the head of Ofsted has said.
Sir Martyn Oliver, chief inspector at the education watchdog, said children are increasingly refusing to go to school because they see their parents working from home.
He claimed that the culture of not going into the office every day had broken the daily habit of 'putting your shoes on instead of your slippers' and going out to work.
School absence rates have increased despite the Government's pledge to usher in a 'new era for attendance'.
The overall absence rate among pupils in England has risen to 6.9 per cent at the start of the spring term in January – up from 6.6 per cent at the same point in 2024.
Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, warned last year that the scale of children regularly missing class was quickly becoming an 'absence epidemic'.
Separate figures show that a seventh of primary school children and a quarter of state secondary school pupils are persistently absent, missing at least one day a fortnight.
Persistent absence across state secondaries in England rose from 13 per cent in 2018-19 to 24 per cent in 2022-23.
Sir Martyn told the Sunday Times: '[After the pandemic] suddenly people were used to working from home and, in many cases, I don't think there was that same desire to have their child in school while they were at home.
'They had been used to it for the best part of a year-and-a-half, on and off, during lockdown. That changed something.
'If my mum and dad were at home all day, would I want to get up and leave the house, knowing they were both there?
'I would be tempted to perhaps say, 'can I not stay with you?'.
'Seeing my dad go out early to work, often hours before I had even got up, well, there's an expectation: put your shoes on, put your school uniform on and go out the door and go to school; go to work.'
He added: 'I think developing good social habits of getting up in the morning, putting your shoes on instead of your slippers, going to school, expecting to complete a full day's school, a full day's work – clearly that's habit forming.
'Nationally, Fridays have always been the worst attendance day [for schools], but then I look at Westminster [where Ofsted is based] and I see the place clearing out on a Thursday night very often. Again, is there something in that?'
Asked if children were copying adult working patterns, Sir Martyn responded: 'Yes.'
Labour previously insisted its pledge to roll out free breakfast clubs in all primary schools in England will help tackle the absence crisis by encouraging more children into the classroom.
The Government has also promised to provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school, while absence levels are expected to be scrutinised as part of Ofsted inspections under an overhaul of the schools watchdog.
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