School Attendance
It has long been established that good school attendance is a key factor in promoting educational achievement. Torfaen Council places a high priority on improving pupil’s educational achievement, well-being and life chances by increasing school attendance levels.
Research has shown that some young people who regularly miss school for no good reason not only risk falling behind with their school work, they may also be drawn in to anti-social behaviour and crime. It has therefore been an increasing council priority to improve attendance at school. While it is the duty of the parent to ensure that a child of compulsory school age receives a suitable full time education, the Education Department has a duty to enforce attendance through the courts where necessary by the prosecution of parents. Such action is taken, where appropriate when all else fails and we will only do this as a last resort. Before this we look to provide advice and support for parents and pupils and liaise with the school.
We will all work closely with schools to target poor attendance. There will be opportunities for schools to share good practice on attendance. Whilst it is not a legal requirement for school governing bodies to have a designated governor for attendance it is certainly held up by many LEAs as effective practice and we will talk to governing bodies about how we can do this in Torfaen.
The Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) has set targets for attendance outlined in ‘The Learning Country 2: Delivering the Promise’. This states that by 2010 overall attendance levels will be 92% at Secondary level and 93% at Primary level. Currently Torfaen is at 6th highest position as compared against other LEAs in Wales.
In this area of the website you will find the attendance figures for Torfaen Schools. These figures will be updated and published on a termly basis.
The Torfaen Average Attendance figure in 2006/2007 was Secondary Schools 92.1% and Primary Schools 94.5%.