Robots might sit within the seats of absent youngsters at school – to permit the pupils to entry classes from a “safe space”, a former youngsters’s commissioner has stated.
Anne Longfield, government chair of the Centre for Younger Lives, stated that creating a “more inclusive” faculty atmosphere might assist deal with the attendance disaster – quite than a “one-size-fits-all” method, in a brand new report.
It outlined the potential use of telepresence AV1 robots as one potential technique.
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Pic: No Isolation
It comes as she warned that threatening dad and mom with “punitive” fines when their baby misses faculty isn’t decreasing absences.
A brand new report from the Centre for Younger Lives thinktank and the Youngster of the North initiative stated headteachers had discovered that methods to deal with pupil absence previous to the COVID pandemic had been now not as efficient.
It additionally stated that early knowledge from a pilot venture in Wirral, Merseyside, discovered that telepresence robots might assist deal with engagement and attendance points.
The paper highlighted the AV1 telepresence robots, made by the corporate No Isolation, as one of many various programmes that might assist.
The robots would sit in an absent kid’s seat in school and permit them to entry a lesson reside whereas in a “safe space” elsewhere – whether or not nonetheless on-site at college, or at residence.
Because of this, they helped increase attendance by as a lot as 21% and improve the variety of hours pupils engaged with studying by 42%, the report stated.
The report continued: “As part of their programme, Wirral Emotionally Based School Avoidance Strategy are using the AV1 device, a telepresence robot that enables children to access their education remotely.
“The robotic sits within the younger individual’s seat in school, and so they entry a reside stream of the lesson through an digital pill in a protected area (eg at residence or an intervention room inside faculty).”
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The kids can nonetheless entry classes reside because of the robotic, through a pill from a “safe space” elsewhere. Pic: No Isolation
Ms Longfield, a former youngsters’s commissioner for England, added: “The reasons why children miss school are often complex and there is no silver bullet.
“Nonetheless, the one-size-fits-all and infrequently punitive method that earlier governments have taken to deal with absence must be consigned to the previous.
“Simply, threatening parents with fines is not working for many families and not reducing severe absence rates.”
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Anne Longfield. Pic: PA
As a part of a authorities drive to spice up faculty attendance post-COVID, the fines dad and mom face for taking their youngsters out of faculty with out permission have risen this yr.
Absence fines have elevated from £60 to £80 and a guardian who receives a second high-quality for a similar baby in a three-year interval will robotically obtain a £160 high-quality.
Different actions, like a parenting order or prosecution, will probably be thought-about if a guardian exceeds two fines per baby inside a three-year interval.
These prosecuted might obtain a high-quality of as much as £2,500.
In the meantime, figures launched final week steered that the variety of pupils in England lacking a minimum of half of attainable faculty classes has continued to tick upwards.
About 158,000 pupils had been “severely absent” over the autumn and spring phrases of 2023-24, in comparison with 139,000 over the identical interval in 2022-23, in line with knowledge from the Division for Schooling.
