Black Country schools at centre of drive to reduce pupil absence

In addition, schools in Walsall will later this year benefit from a £15 million national attendance mentor pilot programme to help families with children struggling to attend lessons.

Hubs are run by schools with excellent attendance records and which share practical ideas with other schools which need help to drive up figures.

Khalsa Academy is only the second West Midlands school to be selected to be a beacon and staff will be helping others with initiatives including tailored breakfast clubs, extracurricular activities, improving their procedures, managing attendance data.

The government is also increasing the direct support offered to children and their families with the expansion of the attendance mentor pilot programme which will will provide direct intensive support to more than 10,000 persistent and severely absent pupils and their families. This means that in Walsall from September schools in the borough will get support from trained attendance mentors under a three-year scheme.

This programme which is run in partnership with the charity Barnardo's provides one-to-one support to pupils who are persistently absent working with them and their families to find out exactly why the child is skipping school. This in turn can lead to extra support, more intensive work with teachers or in some cases bridge-building between the school and family.

The Department for Education said school standards have continued to rise with 89 per cent of schools now rated as good or outstanding an increase from 68 per cent in 14 years ago. It said England was now ranked 11th in the world for maths, up from 27th in 2009, and was now ranked ‘best in the west’ for primary reading.

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said: “The benefits of our success in raising education standards can only be when all children are in school. Tackling attendance is my number one priority.

"We want all our children to have the best start in life because we know that attending school is vital to a child’s wellbeing, development, and attainment as well as impact future career success.

“I am hugely grateful to all our brilliant teachers, heads, and everyone whose worked with us to make the progress we’ve already made with 380,000 fewer children persistently absent.”

Khalsa Academy and Eden Boys School in Birmingham are the region's attendance hubs and are among a total of 32 set up to help almost 2,000 schools reduce absence figures.

Schools which saw significant improvements in their attendance across England, including 14 in the West Midlands have also been written to by education chiefs.