“Good teachers transform lives.”

But what happens when children and young people don’t have access to them?

“Good teachers transform lives”is the phrase that the Ofsted Annual Report 2023/2024 uses to describe the vital importance of effective instruction. High-quality teaching is crucial when it comes to inspiring and educating learners, and supporting even the most vulnerable and disadvantaged students toward a brighter learning future.

…But no matter how good teachers are, if those children and young people aren’t in class with them, they can’t benefit from it.

We need to talk about the UK’s school attendance problem.

School attendance has been at a worrying low since lockdown.

The Ofsted Annual Report tells us that this means a staggering 158,000 students missed half or more of their classes across the school year.

1.6 million children are persistently absent from school. And it’s rising, September on September: between 2015-16 and 2023-24, the overall absence rate in England rose from 4.6% to 7.2%. That’s an issue of endemic proportions, and a 57% increase after the pandemic.

…But we do know why.

The pandemic has significantly impacted student mental health, and there’s a much higher instance of anxiety, depression and other mental health challenges in the student body than ever before – which can make attending school consistently difficult. Economic hardship also plays a part, especially since the cost-of-living crisis, and many families face travel difficulties due to the post-pandemic dip in public transport.

But the broadest reason is perhaps the most concerning. Many students across the world have become disengaged from school due to the disruptions caused by the pandemic: remote learning and the breakdown in teacher-student relationships made it harder for some students to stay motivated and emotionally connected to their education.

Why school attendance matters so much

Attendance doesn’t get the media treatment other post-Covid classroom challenges do. Behaviour makes the headlines once a month, AI in the classroom, once a week – but attendance doesn’t often get the front-page treatment. Why? Because the narrative doesn’t lend itself to high-stakes drama. We’ve all missed a few days of school, haven’t we? Never did us any harm.

…Except it did. But the issue with school absence is that it’s often difficult to relate the instance of absence to the eventual outcome: missing a week of lessons on inverse trig can mean dropping those related marks in the exam, but if happens almost a full year before the exam is sat, that cause-and-effect simply becomes part of a busy background. Missed marks happen, learners forget things, exams phrase familiar subjects in unfamiliar ways – the usual.

Assessments are, thankfully, built with a degree of this in mind. Students don’t need a 100% grade to pass or a complete understanding of the previous year’s syllabus to progress. The issue occurs when those isolated instances of absence become less isolated and missed opportunities for marks become more and more common. As the gaps get bigger, attainment potential becomes limited, target grades shrink, and student self-image suffers. Future plans change.

So whilst it remains true that a short bout of absence isn’t going to have too much impact on later life… multiple or prolonged ones are, because more and more of the assessment elements in those tests get compromised.

“It’s the children who are regularly not in school that cause me the biggest concern, because that’s where you do see a big impact in terms of academic outcomes.”

—Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson MP, in conversation with Channel 4.

Less linear impacts of low school attendance

But as ever, it’s not just about exams.

Going to school plays a vital role in a child’s social and emotional development. Frequent absence from school increases the likelihood of a range of adverse outcomes in childhood and in later life: poor academic performance is one element, but learners who are persistently absent also struggle to develop meaningful social bonds and skills. This can lead to higher instances of loneliness, anti-school subculture and social anxiety – which can compound the issue of prolonged or persistent absences. The cycle repeats.

Under-developing the interpersonal and professional skills that come as part of an in-class education also impacts how these students enter the workplace. The relationship with an educator prepares learners for future relationships with managers; working as part of a class mimics the teamwork mindset that drives work in the majority of careers. Without these social ‘training wheels’, it becomes harder for students to transition into the workplace, as these professional relationships become far less intuitive to navigate.

How can SEN and literacy needs compromise school attendance?

SEN learners have some of the highest absence levels. Everything that we’ve identified as coming between learners and consistent attendance – mental health challenges, disengagement, interrupted routine – gets amplified when learners are struggling with basic access to the learning materials in front of them. This is the story for millions of learners with special educational needs, and especially those who have literacy challenges like dyslexia, who struggle to read and comprehend as their peers do.

When effort doesn’t equal progress, learning is all too often a frustrating, isolating and embarrassing experience. It’s far easier for mental health challenges and anti-school sentiments to take hold. Disengagement is the order of the day, and with good reason: who wants to sit surrounded by thirty of their peers feeling embarrassed, isolated and under pressure five days a week?

And as knowledge gaps emerge, pressure increases and peer bonds break down. That’s how one absence turns into two, then from two into five, and from there becomes entrenched.

English as an Additional Language, and other reading needs

Literacy-based low school attendance doesn’t only impact students who have dyslexia, or other neurodivergent needs. Students who have come to English as an Additional Language are also a group with a large risk of ongoing low attendance, as they can often find themselves challenged by the same cycle of comprehension issues, negative emotions, and school avoidance.

But learners don’t have to have neurodivergent needs or a language barrier for them to have low literacy. Especially since the pandemic, we’ve seen more and more students struggle to read with confidence, especially those in the Early Years stages, as learning from home was implemented. We’re in the grip of a literacy crisis: in 2024, over 25% of UK pupils transitioned into high school without having met the expected standard in the KS2 national reading test.

That’s got to change.

“Persistently absent children have nearly four times the risk of becoming not in education, employment or training.”

—Centre for Young Lives & Child of the North Report 10:

An Evidence-Based Plan for Improving School Attendance

A literacy crisis, a classroom divided: what can we do?

So we have a classroom divided on multiple lines.

There are learners with high attendance and learners with low attendance, and of those with low attendance, we have those whose low attendance is primarily due to external factors, such as economic hardship, and those whose absences have a more classroom-based origin, i.e. reading challenges, confidence loss, or skills-based disengagement from learning.

New policy focuses on the first group of low-attenders. The Labour government has had school attendance on its radar for a long time, and we are seeing inroads made: school uniform cost limitations, maintaining fixed penalty notices, breakfast clubs, as well as more robust attendance reporting frameworks from Ofsted.

Getting that second group back into the classroom is, however, likely to fall largely to educators. But when these literacy barriers are so entrenched and so widespread, and resources are tighter than ever… how far can traditional support solutions go?

How C-Pen Reader 3 is rescuing reading futures

It’s going to be a challenge: giving reading skills and confidence a boost can be tricky enough when learners have consistent engagement and attendance. How can class teachers reach learners who are there less, or feel alienated from the work they do?

C-Pen Reader 3 is a text-to-speech reading support that’s changing the story for learners all over the world. The theory is simple: learners develop stronger literacy skills, increased comprehension ability and better reading confidence when they’re supported by the power of audio feedback. And the practice is even simpler, because it’s truly as simple as scan, listen, understand.

Reading support that doesn’t stop at the classroom door!

We know that schools are facing tougher funding decisions than ever before, and we know that there are issues across the country when it comes to resourcing the sheer number of reading support professionals any one school needs. It’s a double deficit, and learners don’t have the time to wait around: every day their reading needs aren’t met, the disengagement, mental health challenges, and potential for low attendance deepens.

Even if schools can resource enough reading helpers – and that’s a big if – when the support stops at the classroom door, we’re letting those learners who do spend more time out of the classroom struggle along in silence, without the ability to read and learn when they need it most.

But with C-Pen Reader 3, your learners have access to a full suite of reading support tools as well as portable, dependable text-to-speech functionality.

✅Reach for reading independence 

Watch reading and confidence soar as students tackle texts independently with the support of Reader 3’s clear text-to-speech voice. 

✅Instant dictionary definitions 

Expand student vocabularies and boost understanding by checking any word’s definition with built-in dictionaries. 

✅Save text and audio 

Students can save everything scanned, and record voice notes for revision in C-Pen Reader 3’s internal memory. 

✅Practise to perfection 

Improve confidence and gamify literacy skill growth with word exercises, spelling assistance, pronunciation training, and more! 

✅Read in other languages 

Scan offline for reading and pronunciation support, read in 5 embedded languages, or connect online for translation support in 40+ more! 

✅Navigate with ease   

C-Pen Reader 3’s app-based, touchscreen menu makes it as easy to navigate as a smartphone or tablet, even for young learners or those with limited English proficiency. 

✅Read wherever, whenever!

One charge means enough power for an uninterrupted day of scanning, and learners can benefit from Wi-Fi-free text-to-speech support wherever the need to read arises.  

The stakes are high for a reading rescue, and on this scale, we know that educators don’t have the extra time, bandwidth or reach to support each and every learner at their point of need. That’s what makes C-Pen Reader 3 so special: it gives learners a tool – or even a toolbox – full of supports that they can use to rescue themselves, and develop the confidence to read independently and unlock the whole curriculum. 

You can find out more about 

C-Pen Reader 3

at its home at Scanning Pens.  

Or claim your FREE educator trial today!

And we’re a chatty bunch. If you want to speak to one of our reading support experts about supporting the reading needs in your Trust, school or classroom, we’re always happy to explore in-depth solutions for your setting!

📧 Drop us a line: ukinfo@scanningpens.com 

☎️ Give us a call: +44 (0) 207 976 4910