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Parents who have been working from home since the pandemic are keeping their children off school with them, the chief inspector of Ofsted has suggested.
Sir Martyn Oliver, who launched his first annual report as Ofsted‘s chief inspector on Thursday, said the trend can be seen in lower school attendance on Fridays.
The boss of England’s education watchdog said that pre-pandemic, if parents were working from home, they would still send their children to school. He added: “But now post-pandemic we also see parents are working from home and sometimes they keep their children off with them.
“We notice that because on Fridays attendance tends to go down more than any other day.”
When asked about attendance, Sir Martyn said pandemic lockdowns and the “phenomenon” of home working was having an impact on pupil absences.
Sir Martyn explained: “We went into a lockdown period where children were told not to go into school and were actually told to go onto their screens and use their mobile phones and then suddenly we go back and when it comes back it’s like now come off your screen. The thing we’ve actually just asked you to be on for the best part of two years.”
In Ofsted’s annual report, published on Thursday, the inspectorate warned that education has become “fractured and fragmented for too many children”, and that many were experiencing “unorthodox” schooling.
Sir Martyn said the watchdog is “concerned” about the growing number of children “whose pattern of education is disjointed” since the pandemic.
Flexi-schooling – where parents home-educate their children for part of the week – is “on the rise” across England, he said.
Pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) and behaviour needs are also “increasingly” receiving a mix of online and in-person lessons.
The inspectorate warned that families were experiencing “childcare deserts” with high-quality early childcare not available. This is increasingly impacting lower income families.
Nurseries are struggling to recruit and retain skilled staff and this was impacting vulnerable children and those with special educational needs.
In schools, the absence rate for pupils is rising, with disadvantaged and vulnerable children most likely to miss lessons.
A growing number of children are now on part-time timetables, with a mix of online and in-person education being increasingly used for children with behavioural or health needs.
The number of children with special educational needs continues to increase, putting pressure on an already strained system. And the number of children subject to court-imposed deprivation of libery orders has increased in the past couple of years, with over 1,200 applications made last year.
