by Tony Rucinski, Coalition for Marriage
England starts term with absence still far too high. In the 2023/24 academic year, 1.49 million pupils were persistently absent (one in five) and 171,000 were severely absent.
Over the weekend, ministers put behaviour and attendance centre‑stage. The Department for Education says “seven out of every 30 classroom minutes are lost to kids kicking off” and the Education Secretary called on “parents, schools and families” to play their part in addressing the situation. New attendance and behaviour hubs are being rolled out.
Government measures almost everything – deprivation, special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), ethnicity… Yet it still refuses to publish attendance or attainment by family type. That omission matters.
We know from multiple studies that the single most important factor in children’s outcomes is stability at home. And we also know that robust UK studies show married parents are less likely to separate than cohabiting parents, and children born to married parents record better average cognitive and socio‑emotional outcomes.
So why won’t ministers record and report parents’ marriage status as they do other characteristics? Is the Government intent on airbrushing the importance of marriage out of children’s lives just when home stability is most needed?