Pre COVID era saw parents more engaged in their wards' school activities and wanted them to be present in schools every day. However, post-COVID lockdowns, there has been a seismic shift in the parental attitude about full-time school attendance.
There has been a profound breakdown in parental attitudes to the idea of full-time school attendance in the years since the Coronavirus pandemic, a study by consultancy Public First has found. For the study, Public First undertook eight independently recruited online focus groups with parents of school-aged (5-19) children in eight different locations across England between the 27th of June and the 19th of July 2023.
"There has been a paradigm shift in the view of parents. Pre-COVID, ensuring your child’s daily attendance at school was seen as a fundamental element of good parenting. Post Covid, parents no longer felt that to be the case, and instead view attending school as one of several – often competing – options or demands on their child on a daily basis, against a backdrop of a more holistic approach to daily life," the study found.
Term-time holidays are now entirely socially acceptable across all socioeconomic groups, the study found. "There has been a radical shift in the way term time holidays are viewed, and the scale at which they are being taken. The taking of term-time holidays was almost universal. A huge proportion of parents across all social groups talked openly about taking their children on holiday during term time, and those that did not were very sympathetic to it, with several suggesting that they would do the same if the circumstances were right for them," it said.
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Why is this study relevant?
Poor school attendance has always been seen as an obstacle to the development of kids. Low classroom attendance is linked with poor achievement and disrupts the social, health, and civic benefits associated with classroom learning. "School attendance looks set to worsen, with terrifying implications for young people and their families. This report attempts to address the question of why attendance is in crisis by listening to families, parents, and carers. It is this group who will ultimately decide what happens next with attendance. Without them, nothing is possible," the study says.
More than a fifth (22.3%) of pupils in England were “persistently absent” – meaning they missed at least 10% of their school sessions – in the 2022/23 academic year, The Independent reported.
Citing poor attendance of students as a big problem, Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) told Sky News that, "for some parents, the pandemic has eroded the sense that good attendance is essential and they don't seem to see that absence will damage their child's educational outcomes."
