North Ayrshire has clocked Scotland’s worst school attendance figures – with council chiefs insisting they ARE intent on tackling the problem.
A total of 37.9 per cent of pupils missed more than 10 per cent of possible attendances in 2023-24 – the highest rate in the whole country.
Defiant North Ayrshire Council leader, Marie Burns, insists the local authority is reaching out to families to help reverse the ongoing trend.
A report produced for the Cabinet showed that school attendance rates in Scotland, including North Ayrshire, have yet to recover fully to pre-pandemic levels, with a significant correlation between attendance and deprivation.
North Ayrshire’s school attendance rate of 89.1 per cent in 2023-24 reflects a slight improvement from the previous year but still ranks among the lowest in Scotland.
Scotland has prioritised improving attendance through national recommendations, increased data monitoring, and targeted support initiatives. Locally, North Ayrshire has implemented themed work-streams focused on universal supports, policies and processes, targeted interventions, and partnership working.
That has so far led to modest improvements with the overall attendance rate rising to 89.8 per cent on most recent figures, while persistent absence has decreased to 34.4 per cent.
Council bosses say they will work with Education Scotland to offer more support for vulnerable groups in a bid to improve attendance. An initial review of policy and further workshops to explore good practice and partnership working has taken place within Greenwood and Garnock Academy.
In November 2023, Cabinet approved the annual Service Improvement Plan for 2023- 24 which introduced improving attendance as a key focus for improvement, following analysis of North Ayrshire attendance data for 2022-23.
Cllr Burns said: “This is pandemic-related as it is across the country. Our figure is one of the worst but it does relate to areas of deprivation which means that our figures are going to be pretty bad.
“We have anecdotal stories from the pandemic of the breakdown of young people who are not attending and struggling to get back into school. But there’s a lot of work going on, trying to reach out to families and we just need to keep going.
“The number of people who have absent for more than 10 per cent of school time is a a real challenge and a lot of work is going on reach out to families and communities. A lot of work has been done at Greenwood, giving young people an alternative and trying to bring them in gradually.”
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