St Edmund's Catholic School 'delighted' to be named attendance and behaviour hub as government launches roadmap
The government is taking action to tackle poor attendance and bad behaviour in schools through a new roadmap — with a Southsea school leading the way.
An action plan is being implemented in a bid to make major improvements in schools following shocking attendance data, resulting in the creation of 36 new attendance and behaviour hubs.
St Edmund’s Catholic School, in Portsmouth, has been chosen as one of the new hubs where it will offer one-to-one support and best practice through events and open days.
Simon Graham, headteacher at St Edmund’s, said: “We were delighted last summer to be selected by the DfE to be a national attendance and behaviour hub for the south east region.
“The concept is that we will help and support schools across the south east to improve their attendance and behaviour. That will entail working with schools across the region and sharing good practice, showing the things we do here at St Edmund’s, as well as bespoke packages working with individual schools on ten week plans to support improvement.
“We are delighted as a school. I think it represents the hard work that staff do in terms of supporting students well-being, supporting academic outcomes, supporting the extra curricular activities of students.”
As part of the roadmap every school will be issued an AI-powered attendance improvement target, with the government also using AI to link up settings with high performing schools.
Across the whole programme, 5,000 schools are set to benefit, with 500 of those in most need receiving intensive, targeted help.
Tom Bennett, Department of Education’s attendance and behaviour ambassador, said: “Every child deserves a school that is safe and calm, where they can be treated with dignity- and so do all school staff.
“We’re drawing on the professional experience of some of the best schools in England that have successfully created exactly that.
“By helping to build relationships between these schools and their peers, we’ll be building a national network of expertise that can change the futures for generations of children.”
In the south east, The Langley Academy will join St Edmund’s Catholic School as Attendance and Behaviour hubs that will support hundreds of schools.