Charlie Taylor on Persistent Absence

My name's Charlie Taylor and I'm the Government's Advisor on behaviour and I'm really interested in what we can do to improve the attendance of some of our kids. Kids who don't turn up at school end up not getting good grades in their exams, find it hard to get into college and university and ultimately, unable to get a decent job that they should be able to get and deserve. So we're looking at how we can improve attendance in our schools, both in primary schools and secondaries. The Secretary of State Michael Gove has asked me to conduct a review into how we can improve attendance in schools. I'm particularly interested in how we can – at primary schools – prevent families from getting into poor habits of attendance with their children, and how, if we get children into primary school every day, those habits will continue into secondary school. I'm also looking at what schools and local authorities can do in order to take action against parents who are not taking poor attendance seriously enough. One of the great things about this job is I've had the opportunity to go around the country and see all the amazing things that schools are doing to improve attendance and behaviour. But I'd be really interested to hear your comments as well, either comment on this video or go to our Facebook site.