Haringey schools are facing higher absence rates compared to the London average, according to a recent report presented at the Haringey Schools Forum. The Education Welfare Service report highlights that overall absence and persistent absenteeism remain areas of concern in Haringey.
During the 16 October 2025 meeting, the forum received an update on the Education Welfare Service (EWS), presented by Salma Rahman, Principal Education Welfare Officer, and Neil Sinclair, Head of Finance (People), which highlighted these disparities.
In primary schools, the overall absence rate reached 5.5% in the 2024-2025 academic year, exceeding both the London average of 5.4% and the national average of 5.2%. Persistent absenteeism among primary pupils in Haringey stood at 15.8%, also surpassing the London average of 15.1% and the national rate of 13.5%.
Secondary schools in Haringey also face challenges. The overall absence rate is 7.8%, higher than the London average of 7.4%, although lower than the national average of 8.6%. Persistent absenteeism in secondary schools is at 24.5%, exceeding both the London average of 22.3% and the national average of 24.3%.
The Education Welfare Service (EWS) is implementing several interventions and strategies to address absenteeism in Haringey schools, including:
- Providing schools with expert support in managing complex attendance cases.
- Issuing Penalty Notices (PNs).
- Implementing timely statutory interventions.
- Drafting an Attendance Strategy and introducing the Attendance Management Board.
- Supporting schools and families in addressing barriers to school attendance and safeguarding pupils.
- Providing regular advice, guidance, and communication of key attendance messages through allocated Education Welfare Officers (EWOs).
- Increasing EWO presence in schools, including holding parent and pupil meetings.
- Sharing sample attendance policies and template letters with schools.
- Delivering training on day-to-day attendance management.
- Holding termly Targeted Support Meetings with every school to plan targeted support and actions for cohorts of concern.
- Direct intervention and casework undertaken by EWOs on behalf of the school.
- Appropriate referrals to EWS.
- Issuing letters and meeting invitations to families.
- Setting up and leading attendance meetings with parental involvement.
- Conducting home visits for families known to EWS.
- Supporting schools in signposting families to relevant external agencies and assisting with referrals where appropriate.
- Ensuring a holistic approach to improving attendance and supporting vulnerable pupils.
- Providing multi-disciplinary support to families attending and convening meetings where appropriate.
- Providing access to the Early Help support team for intensive, practical, whole-family interventions.
- Advising the family's lead practitioner on attendance-related aspects of the support plan.
- Providing statutory intervention, where necessary.
- Communicating key national and local messages through Attendance Forums.
- Holding strategic meetings with schools identified as priority support to develop and implement robust attendance improvement plans.
- Providing a dedicated duty officer available Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, for prompt responses to school queries.
- Providing improved oversight of penalty notices (PN/s) and statutory interventions.
- Circulating clear guidance on issuing penalty notices and referral pathways.
- Issuing court warnings as per school's request.
- Circulating guidance on off-rolling and Missing pupils.
- Circulating the Working Together to Improve Attendance summary guidance.
- Implementing a new system to streamline the process for schools to request the issuing of PNs for unauthorised holidays.
- Implementing a new referral system to streamline the process for schools when making a referral to the EWS for poor school attendance concerns.
- Circulating revised guidance on the use of part-time timetables.
- Establishing an Attendance Management Board to ensure a strategic and coordinated approach to improving school attendance.
- Developing a system to support schools in complying with their responsibilities to notify the local authority of any pupils who are regularly absent from school.
- Developing a system to support schools in complying with their responsibilities to submit a sickness return where pupils of compulsory school age have been recorded as code I (illness) and who the school have reasonable grounds to believe will miss 15 days either consecutively or cumulatively.
The Education Welfare Service report recommended that the Schools Forum acknowledge the continued need for a central Education Welfare Service to provide schools with expert support in managing complex attendance cases, issuing Penalty Notices, and implementing timely statutory interventions where appropriate.
The report also recommended enabling the service to continue to support schools and families in addressing barriers to school attendance and safeguarding pupils, and to continue to draw upon the experience and expertise within the Education Welfare Service, ensuring that schools receive timely, accurate, and comprehensive guidance on all matters relating to pupil attendance, strategic guidance and boroughwide approach to all attendance related matters.
The document provides contextual data on EWS intervention and cases for the academic year 2024/2025, including:
- Number of referrals to Education Welfare Service: 113
- Number of Penalty Notices issued: 881
- Number of prosecutions: 20
- Number of Missing pupils: 122
- Number of pupils found: 105
- Number of pupils untraced: 17
- Number of EHE (current): 301
- Number of EHE closed: 58
- Number of EHE returned to school: 25
The meeting information indicates that £122,000 is being transferred from the Schools Block to the Central School Services Block (CSSB) for Education Welfare Service functions. The report recommends that the Schools Forum approve the continuation of the CSSB contribution to the service to ensure that the centralised Education Welfare Service in the current model can be further developed.