(BILLIONAIRE)charity founder
Peter Lampl
Will Hazell
Sun, 5 November 2023
Sir Peter Lampl says working from home has 'affected the obligation parents feel about getting their kids to go to school' - Jeff Gilbert
The head of Britain’s leading social mobility charity has blamed working from home for the rise in children missing school.
Sir Peter Lampl, the founder of the Sutton Trust, said the country needed to have “an honest conversation” about how working from home had “affected the obligation parents feel about getting their kids to go to school”.
School absence has skyrocketed since the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to figures from the Department for Education, nearly a quarter (22.3 per cent) of pupils were estimated to be “persistently absent” in 2022-23 – defined as missing 10 per cent or more of their school days.
Before the pandemic, persistent absence stood at just over one in 10 students.
Peter Lampl
Will Hazell
Sun, 5 November 2023
Sir Peter Lampl says working from home has 'affected the obligation parents feel about getting their kids to go to school' - Jeff Gilbert
The head of Britain’s leading social mobility charity has blamed working from home for the rise in children missing school.
Sir Peter Lampl, the founder of the Sutton Trust, said the country needed to have “an honest conversation” about how working from home had “affected the obligation parents feel about getting their kids to go to school”.
School absence has skyrocketed since the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to figures from the Department for Education, nearly a quarter (22.3 per cent) of pupils were estimated to be “persistently absent” in 2022-23 – defined as missing 10 per cent or more of their school days.
Sir Peter, a former private equity boss who grew up on a council estate and has spent more than £50 million of his own fortune expanding social mobility, said that the shift to working from home during the pandemic was partly to blame.
Writing for The Telegraph, he said: “We need to address each of the complex problems behind this emergency.
“Firstly, we need to look at working from home – and to have an honest conversation about how the ease of moving your working day from the office to your kitchen table has, inevitably, affected the obligation parents feel about getting their kids to go to school.”
He pointed to comments from Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner for England, who said in March that there was a “huge amount of Friday absence that wasn’t there before” the pandemic, with some children reporting that they were staying at home because “mum and dad are at home”.
“There’s no ignoring the link,” said Sir Peter.
To drive down absence, he said parents had to return to the office.
“We must … look at ways to get more workers back into offices – where, in my opinion, they belong – and, by extension, encourage them to reappraise their commitment to getting their children into school,” he said.
‘School closures undermined social contract’
Sir Peter said working from home was among a number of factors which had fuelled absence.
“There is clearly a pervasive sense that the school closures during lockdown have somehow undermined the social contract that saw parents insist that their kids made it into the classroom except when they genuinely couldn’t,” he said.
“Certainly, it is harder to make the case to parents that a missed day of school here and there really matters when not long ago schools were shuttered for six months.”
He said the pandemic had also led to a “deeply worrying” rise in mental health problems among young people, which “translates into low attendance”.
And the cost of living crisis had exacerbated the problem, he said, because “when parents literally can’t figure out where the next meal is coming from, ensuring that their children make it to the school gates is the slighter priority”.
Sir Peter said that absence posed “huge implications for social mobility”, with the poorest pupils missing the most lessons, limiting “their results and their life chances”.
According to data published by Dame Rachel last week, the majority of pupils who are regularly late for school fail to achieve five GCSEs.
Sir Peter said parents needed to be “compellingly reminded of the importance of school”, but he also called on the Government to “rebuild” services “that can work with families to get their kids back in the classroom”.
“Years of austerity have seen school-home support officers, family officers, and other related services, cut to the bone. They need to be restored.”
Writing for The Telegraph, he said: “We need to address each of the complex problems behind this emergency.
“Firstly, we need to look at working from home – and to have an honest conversation about how the ease of moving your working day from the office to your kitchen table has, inevitably, affected the obligation parents feel about getting their kids to go to school.”
He pointed to comments from Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner for England, who said in March that there was a “huge amount of Friday absence that wasn’t there before” the pandemic, with some children reporting that they were staying at home because “mum and dad are at home”.
“There’s no ignoring the link,” said Sir Peter.
To drive down absence, he said parents had to return to the office.
“We must … look at ways to get more workers back into offices – where, in my opinion, they belong – and, by extension, encourage them to reappraise their commitment to getting their children into school,” he said.
‘School closures undermined social contract’
Sir Peter said working from home was among a number of factors which had fuelled absence.
“There is clearly a pervasive sense that the school closures during lockdown have somehow undermined the social contract that saw parents insist that their kids made it into the classroom except when they genuinely couldn’t,” he said.
“Certainly, it is harder to make the case to parents that a missed day of school here and there really matters when not long ago schools were shuttered for six months.”
He said the pandemic had also led to a “deeply worrying” rise in mental health problems among young people, which “translates into low attendance”.
And the cost of living crisis had exacerbated the problem, he said, because “when parents literally can’t figure out where the next meal is coming from, ensuring that their children make it to the school gates is the slighter priority”.
Sir Peter said that absence posed “huge implications for social mobility”, with the poorest pupils missing the most lessons, limiting “their results and their life chances”.
According to data published by Dame Rachel last week, the majority of pupils who are regularly late for school fail to achieve five GCSEs.
Sir Peter said parents needed to be “compellingly reminded of the importance of school”, but he also called on the Government to “rebuild” services “that can work with families to get their kids back in the classroom”.
“Years of austerity have seen school-home support officers, family officers, and other related services, cut to the bone. They need to be restored.”
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