The West England Bylines (part of the Bylines Network of online newspapers) has published an article “Could virtual schools hold the key to school attendance?” by Dorothy Lepkowska. The article discusses the growth of online schools since the pandemic and how they are helping children who struggle to access mainstream education to learn and thrive.
The article also discusses the Department for Education’s antipathy towards online schools, a recent 100 page guidance document on attendance obliges schools dual-enrolling children with online schools to mark them as absent when at those online schools. A spokesperson said “Online education providers are not regulated in the same way as schools, and so attendance will be marked as an authorised absence in the usual way as the school has no physical supervision over the child’s education.”
Many of us will have seen the impact of these rule changes since schools off-rolled many children struggling to attend when the rules came into effect. The new education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, is reported to be more sympathetic than her predecessors “…urging schools to make happiness, wellbeing, and inclusion the heart of their attendance policies…”. However, they have not repeated these statements since joining the government and the new attendance guidance is contrary to these aims.
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