Gillian Keegan has said Headteachers can pick up absent pupils from home

Headteachers should pick up absent pupils from home, says education secretary Gillian Keegan. (Read More Here).

Gillian Keegan has said Headteachers “have a duty” to drive to the homes of absent pupils and bring them into school, she said she would “pick them up myself” when asked how best to engage with missing pupils.

The comments mark a radical change in direction for the government, which says it is keen to move away from prosecuting and fining parents for not ensuring their children are in school to a more “support-first” approach.

Asked if it was a good use of a headteachers’ time to pick a pupil up from home, Mrs Keegan said: “They [headteachers] do have a duty. We all have to play our part. Sometimes you have to go [to the home] or sometimes you have to text the parent in the morning. Sometimes you just have to do whatever is possible.

“That’s not what we want headteachers doing all of their days. But to be honest, right now, if that works to get somebody in school, it’s worth it.

The education secretary, Gillian Keegan, has accused striking teachers of undermining children’s recovery from the Covid pandemic, saying she did “pretty well” at winning extra funding for schools from the Treasury.

Keegan told a conference in Bournemouth: “Let me be clear, we should not be having these strikes in general, but certainly not now. Children have been through so much in the pandemic and I can’t think of a worse time to be willingly keeping them out of school.”

The strike over pay by National Education Union members in England is said to have affected around half of the country’s 23,000 state schools, with many closed or restricting attendance for the seventh day of industrial action this year. An eighth strike day is scheduled to take place on Friday.

About one in 20 schools in England are thought to have closed completely and many more restricted access to certain year groups, with some having to cancel sports events or transition days for incoming pupils.