Children Missing in Education

Scenario 1 – Children Missing in Education

• Year 7 child starts secondary school in September, is a model student, achieves one of the highest CATS scores in their cohort.

• In the first couple of weeks starts to have days off, this then leads to a week off, then another week off then never returns.

What would you do???

It would appear the child’s attendance at primary school followed a similar pattern, along with 2 younger siblings who also had the same pattern. This should naturally arouse the need to investigate further.

(Check his attendance records)

As any good pastoral leader I always go out of my way, especially with what I call ‘the hard to reach’ parents, who are hard to engage and need a softly, softly approach in getting them to send their kids in to school. Typically, the parents have had undesirable, negative experiences of school themselves and therefore don’t place a massive value on attendance or school life. Understandable.

When I call, Mum notices my Northern accent which seems to be a plus, as her current partner is from the North so it looks like I’m ‘in’. Big thumbs up. She tells me that all the family have had covid and that Kieran will be back on Monday. She agrees to come in and meet me so I can help her with his attendance, and sort any work out he has missed. She seems very agreeable, and affable and even says she would like to discuss the possibility of him getting a scholarship to “Harvard, you know that posh university in America”, and that whilst he is not well at home he is keen to do maths online that has been set for him.

Monday morning comes and goes, the 9am meeting with Kieran's mum doesn’t happen, I can’t get hold of her by phone, can’t even leave a voicemail, as it’s the generic Giffgaff message saying in a mildly aggressive north west accent “the person you are trying to contact is not available right now”.

So, the school/home relationship goes from one of encouragement and working together to one of silence. I call a number of times throughout the day, same message. I call the next day, and the next, and the next, but always met by Giffgaff man.

So, I decide to conduct a home visit. Of course home visits are never easy to arrange as you have to go accompanied by another member of staff, and finding one that is free during the school day is as rare as ….

Eventually, I persuade Mr Ali (the attendance officer) to come with me. I would be up for cycling or even walking but Mr Ali is not so keen so the office books us a cab. Mr Ali has all the relevant attendance data to present when we arrive and to discuss in a softly, softly way.

Remember we’re not going as the POLICE, or to threaten these parents, we are merely going to help them understand the importance of school for their child and to encourage them to send Kieran back, ideally with us now, or tomorrow.

It always baffles me why you would want your children at home with you all day, isn’t it bad enough you have to entertain them at weekends and the holidays? So to me schools are a god send and its free! It’s a win win.

I always find home visits fascinating – I imagine myself to be Louis Theroux – “Who lives in a house like this? “

We arrive at the cul de sac and have to sweet talk the cab to wait for us, if they don’t answer he can take us straight back to school, and if they do we can give him the thumbs up to leave.

We walk up to the door, already feeling a little vulnerable, as we stand out like sore thumbs, two middle aged people suited and booted in the middle of this council estate, you can feel an air of suspicion breathing down your neck over your shoulder although you can’t necessarily see where the breath is coming from. A couple of black youths with hoods up and baseball caps are hanging out in the adjoining doorway, revealing to the world as little of themselves as possible.

We check to make sure we have the right block and Flat 8, I ring the bell, whilst I think quickly what I am going to say if we get an answer. Of course no answer, not even the gif gaff man from the North West, just silence. My colleague tries the next door no 9 and 10, with some optimism that we might at least get access to inside the communal part of the building then we will be a step nearer in tracking down this child, who incidentally we have since found out from research that this boy has two younger siblings who have also not attended school for some weeks now, aged 9 and 5.

I see these youths giving us sideways glances as if to say “You must be joking, you have got more chance of entering No 10 Downing street!” All of sudden as if out of nowhere comes the Amazon man, strutting towards the door with an air of confidence that both my colleague and I certainly lack, and there is no way he will be leaving these premises without dispatching the parcels.

From his pocket he pulls out a magic key, a sort of Allen key that his fireman friend may have given him on the QT, that allows him access to the building. Hey presto, we don’t stop to ask him if it's ok to enter with him, we surreptitiously enter acknowledging his helpful gesture. He has worked out we are on some sort of official business but is far too pre occupied with his parcel deliveries, no doubt he gets paid on volume delivered. Luckily we don’t!

I am now a little apprehensive, as it’s been some years since I’ve conducted a home visit so don’t want to screw it up, but my colleague seems to be in a bit of a hurry. Oh, and we forgot to tell the cabbie our plans, but we’re in now, and there’s no going back.

I notice that the front door of the flat is decked out with Halloween paraphernalia, suggesting that the children may have been at the home recently or even now, and not at the father’s as the mother had seemingly suggested to my attendance officer colleague on the phone.

I give a loud knock to the door, clearly they are not expecting us, probably think it's parcels. A youngish skinny man opens the door. Is this Dad or Mum’s boyfriend I wonder? He looks a little surprised to see me, he remains polite, but stumbles over his words, when I ask very clearly “Where is Kieran?”

In this split second I am having to digest a lot of information, what I see, what I hear, what I don’t see but definitely No kids here. Kids are so inquisitive, especially little ones, a knock at the door would more than likely rouse a response, and either run to the door to see who it is, or at the very least peep round the corner of a door.

As I’m taking as much as I possibly can in, within a few seconds here comes Mum. She is immediately abusive, swearing at me, threatening to "come round my house" and asks how I would like it if she came to check if my kids are at school! I don’t enter into that conversation, and even if I’d wanted to, the door is immediately slammed shut in our faces.

The upshot of this case was that I reported back to SG that the children do not appear to be at the stated address, Dad says they are with Mum, and vice versa. Dad lives in Essex, Mum in Hackney, and guess what no one wants to take responsibility that there are now three children under the age of eleven missing from education and for quite some time. Why? Because it’s out of everyone’s jurisdiction.

What do you do in such cases?

Keep the case open, chase up the relevant police /child services teams until someone ensures these children are safe. You must keep them on your school role until they are located. This is to avoid a situation where no one takes responsibility and the unthinkable happens which would be tragic.