Labour said the UK faces a “generational challenge” with a quarter of 12-year-olds at risk of missing half of a school year.

The party said absence had “skyrocketed” over recent years, as more than 88,000 secondary school students missed at least half of their education last year.

In 2021/2022, 27.7% of secondary school pupils (around 1.6 million) were classed as “persistently absent”, meaning they missed out on at least 10% of school sessions.

Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said the “broken relationship between schools and families” needs fixing.

Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson
Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said there’s a “the broken relationship between schools and families” (Peter Byrne/PA)

On Tuesday, Ms Phillipson will be doing a speech on Labour’s vision for schools where she is expected to lay out a plan for tackling high rates of persistent absence.

Additional mental health counsellors in secondary schools, mental health hubs in every community and universal free breakfast clubs for every primary school pupil, are among the party’s proposals.

MP for Houghton and Sunderland South, Ms Phillipson, said: “The Conservatives have nothing to say about the broken relationship between schools and families that has provoked the cities we’re seeing in attendance, these measures are only tinkering around the edges of a generational challenge.

“Persistent absence has reached historic levels under the Conservatives, beginning even before the pandemic, and they cannot be trusted to fix a problem that they have caused.

“Only Labour has a long-term plan to tackle the attendance crisis and drive the high and rising standards our children deserve.

“That plan starts with additional mental health counsellors in secondary schools, mental health hubs in every community and universal free breakfast clubs for every primary school pupil to boost attendance.”

A recent report by the Children’s Commissioner found that children who were persistently absent over years 10 and 11 were half as likely to pass five GCSEs than their peers with improved attendance records.

The report also suggests that secondary school students receiving Free School Meals are more than twice as likely to be persistently absent than their peers not eligible for Free School Meals.

In Knowsley, in Merseyside, 40% of secondary school children were recorded as being persistently absent, compared to 19.9% in Wandsworth.