Pupils missing school on Fridays as parents are at home, MPs told

Some pupils have missed school on Fridays because their parents are at home since the pandemic, England’s children’s officer has said.

The number of pupils regularly absent from school in England has not returned to pre-Covid levels.

Dame Rachel de Souza told MPs that on Fridays – when “mother and father are at home” – there was “a large amount” of absence that “wasn’t there before”.

The government has not yet responded to Dame Rachel’s comments.

Students are considered persistent absenteeism if they miss 10% or more of class hours, which would be seven days in the fall semester.

Dame Rachel told the Commons Education Select Committee on Tuesday that 818,000 of the 1.6 million children who were consistently absent during the 2021-22 fall and spring semesters were absent from school for reasons other than illness.

And some students miss school more on Fridays than other days of the week, she said — a trend that didn’t exist before the pandemic — citing an analysis of fall 2021 attendance data that covered 32,000 children from three multi-academy trusts.

Dame Rachel said talking to families suggested one reason for the lower school attendance was that distance learning during lockdown had led to an attitude of “well why can’t we just learn online?”

She added: “Parents are at home on Fridays. We have evidence from children: ‘Well, you know, Mom and Dad are at home – stay home’.”

A survey published last year found that just 13% of UK workers go to the office on Fridays. However, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) says most people don’t work from home.

A quarter (25.1%) of students were consistently absent in their final semester, compared with 13.1% in Fall 2019.

In response to these latest figures, the government said the absentee rate was caused by illness, with high levels of flu and other viruses circulating.