A view from Sam Rowlands – Welsh Conservative North Wales Member of the Senedd

Wrexham.com has invited the four North Wales Members of the Senedd to write a monthly column with updates on their work. You can find their updates – along with contributions from the local MPs and MSs – here.

In this month’s column, Welsh Conservative Member of the Senedd Sam Rowlands writes:

The start of another school year is here, and children across Wrexham and beyond will be going back to class.

For too many, however, this won’t be the case and it was concerning to see the Welsh school absence statistics for last year, September 2023 to July 2024. The percentage attendance 89.0%, up a little from 88.5% during the 2022/23 academic year.

Compare that that to 2018/19, the last full year before the pandemic, when Welsh school attendance rates were 94.3%.

Just focusing on secondary school children, the 2023/24 attendance number was 85.5%, down slightly from 85.6% in the 2022/23 academic year.

Those numbers clearly aren’t good enough, and behind the statistics are real children who are missing out on important days, weeks and months of education which could transform their lives.

It feels like too many people are forgetting about them, but they should be at the forefront of every discussion people are having about the state of education in Wales.

The Covid pandemic was a global problem, make no mistake about it. Politicians in many different countries are grappling with issues of non-attendance at school.

However, it is true to say that children in Wales missed more days of school during lockdowns than in any other part of the United Kingdom. More than England, Scotland or Northern Ireland.

Unfortunately, this has amounted to a lost generation, and that is no overexaggeration.

Many children got out of the habit of going to school, and some parents got out of the habit of sending them. Add to that various mental health issues exacerbated and brought on by stringent lockdowns and it is a toxic mix that leads to these poor attendance numbers.

That clearly has an impact, and can’t be ignored. That’s one of the many reasons why we need an independent Welsh Covid inquiry, similar to the one held in Scotland. It’s a shame that Labour Welsh Government Ministers ran away from scrutiny on that, because it makes it much more difficult to learn lessons.

Having children not attending school poses huge new problems for our society as a whole. Not only are the children missing out on important education, but there is also the question of safeguarding and what they are doing when not at school.

School also has an important socialisation purpose, particularly for younger children.

Learning how to interact with others and how to behave in a group environment are important for the rest of their lives. If those things are lost in an individual’s formative years, it has a long-term negative impact for the decades ahead.

We need young people ready and firing to go into the workforce, whether that is via a University degree, a vocational apprenticeship or through some other means.

If a young person isn’t even attending school and getting the basic knowledge, skills and behaviour required to operate in an educational setting, then going to work will be a much more problematic proposition.

Make no mistake, that will do damage to the Welsh economy which is already struggling.

I sincerely hope the Welsh Government can get a grip of the situation. There have been warm words on this from the Education Minister, but not much in the way of concrete action.

I’d like to see Wales replicate school attendance hubs, which were introduced in England by the UK Government in 2023 after a pilot scheme.

In essence, these hubs were fronted by schools that had very high rates of attendance. Those schools were able to work with other schools and educational institutions to share best practice and help them raise the levels of attendance.

This included sharing various direct pupil engagement initiatives, and ways of tailoring support for families and pupils.

One attendance mentoring pilot scheme in Middlesbrough saw 82% of children improving their attendance, thanks to one-on-one support.

This is an innovative way of thinking, and something that really could make a concrete difference in Wales. I urge Labour Ministers in Cardiff Bay to look at this and other options to increase attendance.

If something isn’t done urgently, that lost generation of children in Wales will sink further and further into the mire.

If you have any queries or issues you’d like to raise with me, then you can get in touch by emailing [email protected]