Glasgow City Council launches new campaign to highlight worrying school attendance rates

The council is launching a bold new campaign to tackle the decline in school attendance rates.

The "Attendance Matters Every Day" campaign aims to highlight the problem of poor attendance rates and urge parents and carers to send their children to school every single day by focusing on the critical importance of regular attendance for their child's future.

It also aims to increase levels of parental engagement from those that need support in getting their child to school every day. 

The campaign comes at a time where school attendance rates in Glasgow, and indeed nationally, are on a worrying downward trend post pandemic and the covid lockdowns.

In 2013/14, primary school attendance was at 94%, but, by 2023/24, it had dropped to 90.4% and the lowest in years.

Over a third of Glasgow's primary pupils missed more than 10% of school last year, equating to 13,721 children each missing nearly a month (19 days) of learning .

A staggering 738,625 school days were lost to absence in 2022/23 across primary schools.

Recent research shows that even a few missed days here and there, can add up and impact a child's holistic development and future prospects, and any time missed is almost impossible to recover from.

Some families are keeping their children off school for non-illness reasons, including holidays, and the pandemic has led to a misconception that daily attendance isn't essential for a child's academic, social and emotional growth.

A small-scale targeted survey conducted by Glasgow City Council recently showed that 33% of parents and carers have taken their children out of school during term time for holidays and family occasions, and 24% missed school for reasons other than illness or appointments.

In a bid to establish good habits from the outset and targeting the stage before the crucial transition into secondary education, the campaign is directed at parents and careers of primary school pupils.

The "Attendance Matters Every Day" campaign is looking to change the narrative of going to school every day not being essential, but instead highlighting the value of going to school every day for a child. It talks about going beyond the traditional learning of reading, writing, and maths - looking at life skills, friendships, and future opportunities - that are also nurtured and developed by going to school every day.

Key messages include:

• Going to school every day opens doors to better opportunities in the future.
• It helps children develop essential life skills.
• It fosters friendships that can last a lifetime.

While the council is making unauthorised attendance rates a priority for this year it complements the immense amount of work happening to tackle the underlying problems that affect absence including, additional support needs, mental health and poverty.

Douglas Hutchison, Director of Education Services, said: "There is no denying the facts that, citywide, attendance rates are not where we want them to be. Our schools already do a huge amount of work in their learning communities to support improving attendance.

 "This campaign sharpens the focus and highlights the impact and shines a light on why going to school every day makes a difference to a child.

"Ultimately, we want to get more children into school more often, to help them reach their potential.

"We know that for some of our families there are many obstacles and challenges that lead to non-attendance.

"If parents and carers need additional support our schools are here to help."

This is the first phase of a longer-term campaign that will go on to look at Secondary school attendance rates later in the year. The campaign will be run over six weeks on radio, social media and through schools to raise awareness with our families, children and young people.

Find out more Attendance Matters Every Day