School attendance figures in West Lothian have started to rise again after being hit by the Covid pandemic.
Two years after the end of lockdown it is only now that the council is starting to see attendance figures inching back to pre-2020 levels.
Councillors heard that this has been down to specialist intervention and work with pupils and families to push the message of the benefits of regular school attendance.
It’s a programme which is now being copied by other local authorities.
Many parents have applied for home schooling believing that schools were offering lessons in the way they did during lockdown.
A meeting of the Education Policy Development and Scrutiny Panel heard that falling school attendance has become a national problem post-Covid.
Councillor Moira McKee Shemilt asked: “What are the reasons for non-attendance. Is illness a reason. I was going to ask if there was a Covid spin-off?
Laura Quilter, an Education Quality Improvement Officer for attendance replied: “We did some work with schools around what the reasons were. What we found there was a significant anxiety, particularly around those who were adversely affected during the period of lockdown through transition, our currents S3 and S4 pupils.
“We are working very hard with our educational psychology colleagues to develop support for schools around emotional-based school avoidance because we do know that there are a number of young people who are unable to come into school because of the anxiety that presents to them.
“Schools are working very very hard to find alternative approaches to engage with young people who are not able to physically come into the building and they are doing that very successfully towards the end of this session.”
Mrs Quilter told the meeting: “The development of a West Lothian approach to improving attendance and engagement in schools was identified as a priority to seek to improve attendance universally as well as for targeted groups following a significant decline in school attendance in 22/23 to 89.48%. This was compared to pre-pandemic levels of 92.48 % in 2018/19.
She added that a “self-evaluation toolkit” has been developed to help schools develop inclusion and equality policies.
Schools have also been encouraged to be more flexible with timetabling. The council’s education service has also developed more targeted strategies to work with families to overcome issues facing non-attendance.
Currently 51 primaries and seven high schools have seen improvements in attendance this school year.
Councillor McKeen Shemilt said: “I read that nationally there has been a 20% increase in parents asking for home schooling.
And SNP colleague, the group’s depute leader, Councillor Pauline Stafford asked: “Does West Lothian reflect the rise in applications for home schooling. Are we similar to the national trend?
Kristyna MacSween, the Additional School Needs (ASN) manager replied: “There has been an increase in applications. What we are finding is that parents are putting an application in but they are seeing it as the home learning that was happening through Covid and are potentially still expecting schools to provide that curriculum for them, which is totally different to home schooling.
“We are not seeing huge differences in the numbers that are actually being home educated but we are seeing increases in applications, because there’s a perception of a difference there.”
Andrew McGuire, chair of the committee, asked if there had been a change in attitude around parents: “thinking I’m in the house anyway so it’s ok to take one or two days off sick because it’s easier than trying to wrestle them to school?”
Mrs Quilter said: “That is something we have experienced but schools are working very hard to help parents understand the impact of non attendance at school and the benefits of educational attainment.”
By Stuart Sommerville, Local Democracy Reporter
The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) is a public service news agency. It is funded by the BBC, provided by the local news sector (in Edinburgh that is Reach plc (the publisher behind Edinburgh Live and The Daily Record) and used by many qualifying partners. Local Democracy Reporters cover news about top-tier local authorities and other public service organisations.
