Amongst all the good news about GCSE results and capital investment the DfE released figures regarding absences and truancy...

As you know, attendance is an issue we take very seriously and masses of work is being carried out to ensure children and young people are in school as much as possible. This is having a positive impact and primary attendance for this year improved from 94.1 per cent to 94.3 per cent and secondary attendance improved from 91.5 per cent to 91.9 per cent. However, the figures for the last spring term showed Leeds was second worst nationally, behind Manchester, for secondary schools and the fourth worst nationally for primary and secondary combined; and eighth worst for unauthorised absences.

Clearly as a city we need to do even more to tackle poor attendance and persistent absence which is one of the priorities within the Children and Young Peopls's Plan. We are seeing positive effects and levels of persistent absence in secondary school decreased from 8.3 per cent in 2009 to 6.9 per cent in 2010 and in primary schools it fell from 2.9 per cent in 2009 to 2.6 per cent in 2010.

We know that if our children and young people attend school regularly they will do well and, together with schools and families, we will continue to work on initiatives to improve attendance so all children and young people in Leeds benefit from the brilliant educational oportunities and offer available in our schools.
Chris